Generator Rex Season 4
by vetty123
Summary: The Second Nanite Event has effectively reprogrammed every nanite on the planet, EVOs have all been eliminated, and Rex can finally have a happily ever after with Circe and the gang, right? RIGHT? But Van Kleiss is back with a vengeance, and has his own plans. Throw in an amnesiac with a familiar backstory and a Hunter with a grudge, and you've got...Generator Rex Season 4! R&R!
1. Smiles in the Dark

[Author's Note – This story is my first attempt at a long story, so pardon any plot bungles I make. Please review and let me know what you think! Also (this is important) **this story is being moved from my Wattpad account**,** AWannabeWrit-ah**. I'm working on moving it from one site to the other, so please don't call plagiarism on me! I'm just shifting sites! Nothing suspicious here! And now, the introduction…]

Disclaimer: I own none of the following characters: they're all from Man of Action's drawing board. The plot line (and one or two OC's) is mine, however.

_Greenville, Ohio_

_Three days after the New Event_

The computer screen hummed quietly as figures, charts and numbers flickered on and off the screen. The bleary-eyed man sitting at the keyboard worked feverishly, running his hands through his tangled black hair to keep it out of his eyes. His fingers flew across the keys as though he were playing the piano, and his pupils dilated and expanded as he scanned each exhaustive page of data. Then, groaning, he straightened his limbs and rose, moving to the center of the room.

He had worked non-stop for the past 72 hours, trying to salvage the empire that he had built and ruled so long ago. But more importantly, he worked to save his life, tightening screws and inserting wires as he walked. He could already feel his limbs being drained of their power as the nanites that gave him strength were slowly exhausted and disposed of.

Ever since his "travel agent", as he snidely called her, had brought him on this unrequested excursion to limbo, he had been trying to undo what that annoying teenager, Rex, had done. His knuckles whitened around the mallet he was holding. Did that impertinent brat have a clue of the damage he had caused, of the hopes that he had so callously dashed? _Soon_, Van Kleiss thought to himself. _Soon, he would fix what had been broken, and the world would be his for the taking once more_.

After Breach had taken him through her portal, he had barely enough nanites in his body left to reconstruct his ruined arm, and after he'd felt Rex's global interference he'd had to hack a stolen Providence earpiece to find out what was going on. He could hear partying in that base of theirs as they raucously celebrated the deactivation of all nanites on the earth, which would indubitably lead to the eventual death of one Van Kleiss. _But this old dog has some new tricks up his sleeve_, Kleiss sniggered to himself. Then he mentally slapped himself._ Talking to myself, am I now? The exhaustion must be getting to me._ This only reinforced his determination to finish his job and repair the wreck that was his life. It was a miserable life, though, wasn't it? Chased through millennia by a plasmoid tachyon field that had later turned out to be Breach, kept as a captive scientist by a crazy dictator who wanted to rule the universe, cut off from his life-sustaining nanites by the fabric of time-space, trapped in the middle of (literally) nowhere, the list went on, and on, and on, and on, and…

The man's head slowly drooped forward on his neck as his limbs relaxed, floating away on a tranquil sea of silence…

The door behind him creaked open slowly, swinging awry on its hinges. Van Kleiss started, realizing with a start how close he had been to falling asleep. That would be unacceptable. He turned around to see who had entered, and found nobody standing in the doorway. Ever since he had accosted the dilapidated schoolhouse as his temporary base, he had been more and more intrigued by the apparently random items scattered through the building. A room full of pink stuffed bunnies, a cafeteria infested with giant Evo spiders, and now doors that swung open by themselves.

_The floor must be uneven_, he thought, returning to his work, completely missing the mechanical blue wolf who had been standing at his shoulder for some time now.

* * *

><p>Biowulf stood there awhile, musing to himself. Master had been working himself into the ground lately, and the loyal henchman pondered the plus points of simply knocking Van Kleiss out right now and claiming later that he must have fainted from exhaustion. Biowulf thought about it, and then dismissed the idea. It wouldn't do for Master to fall asleep here – wherever here was.<p>

Van Kleiss' right-hand man had very mixed feelings regarding their little jaunt to Breach's private chunk of insanity, and inwardly wondered if he should have stayed behind to be cured by Rex. Biowulf had no memory of his life before the Event, and had always wracked his mind for memories – was he an orphan? Were his parents still alive? What was his real name? But his crooked brain gave no new memories, only old ones of a young freak running through a dark city, hiding in alleys, spat at by complete strangers until a man with a golden hand appeared to save him.

Biowulf rationalized to himself – even if he was cured, the justice system wasn't going to be so lenient as to simply give him a free pass from jail for the numerous crimes against humanity he had performed in his time as a rogue Evo. Why, they would lock him up and throw the keys down the nearest geothermal vent if he so much as poked his nose 'round the corner. _Still_, that insidious, traitorous voice in the depths of his mind said, _that Rex kid is a big softie – and you did help him out in that fiasco in the Bug Jar. Maybe if you talked to him, something could be done?_ _Perhaps he might even_ – No. This line of thinking was too cowardly to be considered. Biowulf immediately stopped thinking about anything regarding seditious (as he viewed it) actions and shifted his mind from the disturbing topic of changing sides.

Unfortunately, this broke his concentration, and the accursed questions continued to pour in – Had he played any sports? Did he have _siblings_? The questions accumulated, pounding at his brain cells, rising in his mind like a tidal wave, nearly choking him with the overwhelming thought of what might have been, until he brutally stuffed them into a box in the back of his mind. A handy trick he had picked up along the years – your mind won't survive very long if you let it run wild with its thoughts. But, speaking of his thoughts – Biowulf snapped back to attention and decided to cough softly.

Biowulf's mouth, which had not been designed for coughing softly, decided to let out a strident bark that made the wolf-man wince.

Van Kleiss' head snapped up when he heard the noise, his red-rimmed eyes scanning the room until he noticed Biowulf standing directly behind him. He gave a slight start, and mentally made a note to commend the wolf later for his impressive stealth skills.

"Ah, Biowulf. You wish to speak to me?"

Biowulf nodded. "Skalamander woke up around an hour ago, and is brawling with that…_girl_ again. I came to ask you if should intervene on behalf of either of them."

Van Kleiss sighed as he knuckled his eyes wearily. When they had arrived at Greenville, Breach had taken off to "go to where the stillness is", whatever that meant. He assumed that it was Breach-speak for needing to do some soul-searching about the opportunity for being cured that had just slipped by the Pack. After Kleiss had found some monitors and stone-age modems and Biowulf had located the school computer lab, the henchman had worked to get an operating base running, but Van Kleiss had to finish his project first before he could consider more mundane tasks.

They were both working diligently when they were rudely interrupted by a giant purple…thing with an old young girl's face (if that makes any sense at all) that had barreled through the door, demanding to know whether they were Breach's new "favorites". After Kleiss had tried unsuccessfully to drain her of her nanites (she somehow detached the drained limb from her body and grew another one), Skalamander had appeared and knocked her back out the door, and since then the two had been going at each other hammer and tongs intermittently.

"I cannot have any more interruptions, Biowulf. The project at hand requires my utmost attention, and a single slip-up could result in the end of the Evo race."

Biowulf nodded. He would see to it that all remained calm outside. As he left, Van Kleiss turned back to his jumbled workbench, already running calculations in his head. Should he put the transponder at the head of the circuit, or should it go in after the nanite micro-analyzer? He began fiddling with the chips once more, trying different arrangements and running test sequences in his head, seeing which ones would work.

The jumbled mass of wires and transmitters slowly began to come together and started to form the rough outline of the diagrams sketched on the makeshift blueprints he had hastily drawn up. After another hour of tinkering and testing, he was sure he had perfected the design. Soon, he could start his machine up, and then he could ensure his continued existence.

Van Kleiss smiled in the dark.

xxXxx

A/N – There it is, the first chappie! Please review! Flames are welcome (critical analysis of my own text is always difficult for me, so any comments would be wonderful)! One issue I'm struggling with: do you think my chapters should be longer? What's the ideal length? Expect the next update before Halloween – sorry, I'm a slow writer.


	2. Remembering Well

A/N - Another update! Finally! The length of these chapters will be variable, by the way, but I'm trying to keep to an average of around 1700 words. If you see any grammar errors, any at all, just message me or comment below (I'm a perfectionist, and I _must_ have this story done perfectly! Or at least mediocrely, if that's a word…)

**Important Plot Note**: I've made a slight alteration to the canon Generator Rex Universe. In Enemies Mine, the last episode featuring Gatlocke, Hunter, No-Face and Valve, they were all trapped inside a Providence base by a force field. However, at the very end of Endgame (lol), when Rex is curing the world, No-Face is seen standing outside, apparently freed, moments before being cured. This makes no sense to me, and so in my story, he was imprisoned at the time of the Second Nanite Event.

_Meanwhile…_

_Providence Holding Cell 7_

The man sat hunched on the bench, a hulking shadow in the checkered light filtering through the iron bars. He sat completely still, but for his eyes, which flickered all over the dimly lit hallway, waiting. The sounds of the celebration above trickled into his cell, and he sank into a state of deep concentration trying to distinguish separate conversations from the hubbub he could hear. This was pastime of his – just because you were caught doesn't mean you could afford to slack off. His mind slowly fell into a lull, and he thought back over the events of the past few days.

_His block mates were going stir-crazy. The kook who called himself "The Biker" had taken to throwing himself at the bars every five minutes, yelling that "the Biker never quits!", while the one with no-face was shouting through his nanites that he would kill everyone once he got out. Only Gatlocke seemed to be normal – of course, _he_ was playing a game of tic-tac-toe with himself and dancing for joy every time he won. In short, it was another normal day with the guys in Cell Block 7._

_Suddenly, a wave of blue light raced down the hall and washed over the entire block. He immediately went into high-alert mode – he scanned his body for any injuries or infections, then studied his surroundings. Normal, normal, everything was – _Thud_. A thumping noise brought the big man down to a crouch as he examined the vicinity from which the noise had come. There was a black mass lying on the floor in No-Face's cell, and No-Face himself was nowhere to be seen._

That was when they'd heard the news – EVOs all over the planet were cured, and their cell-mates were moving out. With the cessation of hostilities and the need to be on perpetual defense gone, the justice system had finally gotten itself moving, and was currently busy exonerating cured EVOs who had had their memories wiped when they were "turned". No-Face had got off scot-free, and Valve was serving another 3 years in a government slammer.

No-Face came to visit sometimes – the Providence shrink said that familiar faces could jog his memory, which seemed to be blanked out. All the man had remembered was his name, Evan, and the memory of great, crushing pain and hopelessness. _Sucker probably made that up to buy sympathy so he'd get off_, the cynic on the bench thought privately.

Luckily, he probably wouldn't need to fake amnesia to get out of prison. He had a plan to get himself out of here, and while it had more holes in it than a sieve, he was counting on the guards being rather drunk on the success of finally defeating all EVOs, except one, of course. If his partner came through, they could be free by nightfall.

Right now, though, it was all the man could do to hold himself still. Just thinking about how close he was to achieving his final goal of eradicating the EVO disease from the planet made his fingers itch, and his hand open and closed convulsively. He wished he had a gun, or a chainsaw, or a baseball bat, or _something_ to take down that nuisance, Rex, who appeared to be the last EVO left on earth. With that, his mission would be accomplished, and he would have finally eradicated the damnable disease that had taken his wife from him.

_His wife…_

* * *

><p>Hunter drifted off into a fog of memories, thinking back to the days when he had happiness and a home. He recalled how she would laugh when something amused her, or sing when she did the dishes, and hum <em>Beethoven's Ninth<em> while she made the coffee.

He remembered how she would sashay through the house, dusting and wiping every surface when one of her intractable cleaning moods came upon her. How she would kiss him goodbye every morning on his way to work. How her eyes would light up when she saw the bouquet of flowers that he would pick up on his way back from the office. How she smiled whenever she saw him struggling to sign a document, his hammy fingers wielding the pen clumsily.

He also remembered her writhing on the floor one morning, screaming unintelligibly as her eyes tinged themselves yellow, her fingers sharpened into claws and tentacles began bursting out of her body, waving wildly as Hunter watched in horror. He remembered stumbling down the stairs at full tilt, incoherently screaming into his phone over the cacophony of screams coming from upstairs.

He remembered hearing the sirens blare through the night as he stood on his lawn, helplessly watching as his house collapsed, revealing the…thing…inside. He remembered the copters flying past what was left of his house, a young teen battling an unrecognizable monster, a pair of katanas slicing through mutated flesh, an inhuman shriek cleaving the very air.

A single phrase had danced through his head, reverberating in his ears for hours after the mess had been dragged away. The syllables hovered before his eyes, taunting his own impotence.

_Dangerous incurable_.

He remembered sitting in what was left of his kitchen, after they'd all gone. He remembered calling a funeral home, only to find that EVOs were not allowed to be buried alongside humans, for fear of causing trouble with the families of other deceased. He remembered sifting through the debris in a stupor, falling to his knees in the wreckage, heedless of the countless jagged edges digging into his skin.

He remembered veins throbbing in his forehead as his rage boiled itself, distilling into a pure hatred for EVO-kind. He decided there, in the rubble of his former home, that he would personally avenge his wife, and crush the infection that had taken her from him. His knuckles went white as his fists clenched, as he swore his oath to the ruins of his former life. Quietly at first, then louder and louder, until finally he was screaming his challenge at the peaceful moon, resonating through his old house – what was left of his old life.

Hunter remembered all this.

And remembered it well.

* * *

><p>The sound of approaching footsteps and a sharp click as the light switch was thrown brought him out of his reverie. Two chattering Providence guards turned the corner talking animatedly and Cain looked at Gatlocke out of the side of his eye, nodding slightly.<p>

Gatlocke, who had been disturbed from adjusting his new arm (perfectly normal, no weapons whatsoever) by the sound as well, looked up. He stared back confusedly at Hunter for a moment, and then widened his eyes as realization struck him, smirking back across the hall at his fellow prisoner. He whispered,

"Time to implement our nefarious scheme, eh? Ooh, I know, let's code name this plan Operation Side-Spot, shall we? No, that's stupid, how about Break-"

Hunter cut his makeshift partner off with a sign towards the Providence guards, who were approaching slowly, absorbed in their discussion of whether or not White Knight would emerge from his nanite-free fortress, now that there was no risk of infection. They seemed to be in a jovial mood, bantering back and forth freely.

Hunter watched with bated breath as the two guards walked by his cell, praying inside that Gatlocke wouldn't forget his role in this. As the guards walked by Gatlocke's cell –

"Excuse me, gentlemen! Could I have a moment of your time?"

Hunter sighed and ran a hand over his forehead. _This was not part of the plan_.

The grunts paused, momentarily taken aback, then one of them asked, "Whaddaya want in there?"

"Ah, yes, umm….." Gatlocke looked around, and for a moment Hunter was positive that Gatlocke had no clue what he was doing. As usual.

"Oh, I remember now!" Gatlocke said with a bright smile on his face, and Hunter actually dared to hope that Gatlocke was going to pull through on this. "My stomach hurts. Bad. And….I think I need to see a doctor."

Hunter Cain nearly groaned out loud. _If those Providence grunts buy that excuse, we _deserve_ to break out for being smarter than those morons. Why can't anything be easy in my life?_

He decided to help the process along. "Oh yeah. Puking all over the place. Sure hope it's not contagious or something. Could be that nasty bug floating around." He took a gamble on the fact that these two looked dumb and, for all he knew, there might really be a 'nasty bug' hanging around somewhere outside if you looked hard enough. Of course, if the guards had more brain cells than your average brick, they'd realize that Hunter was locked up in jail, and couldn't possibly know whether or not there was a bug "floating around".

"Well, if you're really sick…" one of them said, while the other appeared to be thinking over it. Then the silent one nodded, and they both turned to face the prisoners. "Okay, Mr. Sicky, looks like you've got an appointment with the doctor." One of them approached the panel next to Gatlocke's cell (which incidentally was the master panel for the entire cell block). He punched in the code, rather carelessly leaving the keypad exposed to sight: something completely against protocol, and an occurrence that would most certainly not have happened on any other day.

Once Gatlocke's door had been opened, Gatlocke actually did something right – he went into a mock fit, thrashing his limbs rather impressively, scaring the guards out of the cell and into slamming the door shut. They looked at each other once more, and moved at a rather rapid clip out of the hall, presumably to find this "doctor" they'd spoke of.

Once the Two Idiots had left the cell block, Hunter smiled. His plan was falling into place, and he'd got what he needed.

A/N - What's happening? Do you like my story? Love it? Loathe it? Whatever it is, just let me know real quick down below, will you? I've even composed a couplet for you! I'll start responding to reviewers in my next post, I guess.

_I sit upon this comfy chair,_

_And see no comments anywhere._

_My friend, good friend, perhaps could you,_

_Leave a note, or three, or two?_

A work of art! And now you HAVE to comment! *maniacal evil cackle fading off into background*. Actually, I'm not mad – although I will be by the time I finish studying for the SAT. Anyway, cheers, all! BTW, don't hold your breath about the third chapter - it could take a while.

xxXxx


	3. Insidious Whisperings

_Meanwhile,_

_Providence cafeteria_

The Providence cafeteria was overflowing with party balloons and streamers, with multi-colored confetti streaming from the ceiling and a rogue monkey tossing pizza slices at unsuspecting Providence grunts. The chatter was nearly deafening, rising in a crescendo through the halls that had seen so much suffering and now, at last, a bit of joy.

The speakers for the intercom and alarm systems had been re-wired to a DJ desk, and the party was in full swing. In the center of all the celebration was Rex, the man of the hour – no, the man of the century. Nobody in the room doubted that the kid's name would go down in history with the greats, those who stood eye to eye with the darkness and refused to blink – Winston Churchill, Leonidas I, Abraham Lincoln: and now, Rex Salazar.

After all, he had single-handedly ended one of the greatest plagues that humanity had ever known, _and _had turned down the offer to become a god; not to mention the fact that he was also a pretty fun kid, always good for a free soda or two at the Providence cafeteria vending machines. So it's no wonder that all the scientists and soldiers of Providence insisted on giving the boy a prolonged standing ovation to top off the festivities for the day, with even White Knight – who had wasted no time in reclaiming his office and video screens – giving a hand.

The party was on, and had been on ever since Captain Calan had caught the Consortium cowering in an underground bunker originally designed for nuclear fallout. Their powers had been completely removed, and they were now a disgruntled group of rich people who had all their assets frozen indefinitely.

As Calan had remarked later to his team, "Where did they think they would hide? I mean, Rex's wave reached all the way to the other end of the globe, for pity's sake, an' they thought a mile or two of rock could keep them safe? Funny thing, though. When we caught 'em, they came almost quietly. We wondered why, until we looked under the table and saw Black Knight lying there with two blacked eyes, four teeth knocked out, two broken ribs and seven other assorted broken bones around her body. Seeing that made my day, it did."

He snorted. "Hell, it made my decade."

* * *

><p>Familiar faces were everywhere. Noah, as an honorary Providence agent, was in a corner taking goofy pictures of Rex posing with Holiday and Six, who looked like he'd rather be eating broken glass than be standing there. Agent Kenwyn Jones walked by talking animatedly with Walter (aka Squid) with Tuck following, one arm draped over Cricket's shoulders.<p>

Sure, Van Kleiss had kept his powers and was still out there, but why waste time worrying about him when the world had just turned right side up, after having been upside down for six terrible years? _But who cares? _That was the dominant mood in the room, and there were only a few serious people thinking of the future.

One of these people, of course, was Agent Six. He was worrying about the future. _Look at these people. Sure, they're happy now, but soon they'll all be out of a job, and then – what?_ Truth be told, Agent Six wasn't sure he would know what he'd do with himself if, no, when Providence disbanded.

He had briefly toyed with returning to being a hitman and taking money for kills, but had discarded the idea just as quickly. His prickly new morals wouldn't allow him to "run with the old gang" and take up assassination contracts like he used to in a past life.

Also, he privately wondered what White would do after this – he was still the only nanite-free human on the planet, but that was pretty meaningless now that everyone's nanites had been deactivated permanently. What would Rex do, as well? _Once the original hype and drama fades away, the kid'll become a freak show again; him and the monkey he didn't cure for whatever reason._

Six was nudged out of his grim thoughts by Dr. Holiday, who had bumped into him as she reached over for a slice of Beverly's cake, which had proved to be much more edible than her older sister's failed attempts. Six eyed the Doctor discreetly through the edge of his sunglasses, secure in the knowledge that his eyes were hidden by his shades.

Normally, the ninja was scrupulously dedicated to the task at hand, and generally refused point-blank to allow himself to be distracted by the Doctor. However, it had struck him recently that there _was_ no job at hand, leaving him free to indulge in his infatuation with the good Doctor.

Six stopped his train of thought. No, scratch that – infatuation was a bit too strong, not to mention that the term was a bit demeaning when applied to the sixth most dangerous man on the planet.

_I've trained by myself for years to attain a level of perfection in combat that this world has never seen before! I've fought Evos the size of city blocks! I could disable every Providence agent –yes, even Rex – in this room with a blindfold on and one hand behind my back! I do not get _infatuated_ with people!_

His ego suitably re-inflated, Six returned to musing upon the nature of his relationship with Holiday for a few minutes. _Attraction. That's it. Mild attraction. That's all it is_. Satisfied, he turned his attention back to his surroundings, allowing to noise to swirl over him.

"Quite a party, don't you think so?"

Six blinked, not that she could see it. Holiday was looking at him expectantly, with a faint pink tinge to her cheeks and a smile on her face, clearly waiting for an answer. He decided to give a stock answer. "Absolutely", he replied, with a straight face.

Holiday looked sideways at the man standing next to him. She suspected that his mind was wandering elsewhere, although his face could have been chiseled in granite, it was so unmoving. Nonetheless, she prided herself on being able to read the man's features after such a long association, and she could – sort of – tell that he was distracted. She shrugged, and allowed her own mind roam free while she chewed her sister's cake.

She absent-mindedly watched Noah wrestle Rex into a headlock so Bobo could snap a picture of the pair, and smiled. She was going to miss this, she knew, and the pain of the impending loss was already poking at her insides. The last six years of her life had been filled with painful events, and yet, somehow, she felt rather sad that the ride was coming to an end. Sure, she was glad that the Evo threat had been neutralized once and for all, but…she wished that the group, no, the _family,_ that had been built from this adversity could stick together, but she knew it couldn't be.

Imagining a day with no Rex breaking out of Providence, with no Bobo dumping hairs into her coffee, with no White snapping out orders busily, with no Six following her around…_Stop it_, she ordered herself. There was no point in making herself miserable when everyone around her was so happy.

To cheer herself up, she decided to talk to Six, who, for some unfathomable reason, never failed to make herself feel better. She needed to sort out her feelings for him – just one more thing to do in her new life as a regular researcher. Six and her had gone out for dinner once, she knew, but nothing serious came out of it, mainly due to the fact that Providence base had fallen shortly after that and things had gotten very busy.

She supposed that ever since that blasted _snake_, Scarecrow had – had taken _advantage_ of her feelings for Six, she was wary of any sort of relationship with the man. She had already broken her heart and wound up crying once, thank you very much, and she'd rather not go through the experience again.

Her insidious mind kept whispering, though. _Think of a day without Six. Without seeing that green suit, or those black shades or those _– She wrenched her mind from such avenues of thought. She blushed furiously and instantly started talking to Six, in an attempt to shut her treacherous mind up.

"Quite the party, eh?"

Six, disturbed by his earlier lapse in concentration, responded almost immediately, and in typical Six fashion.

"Yes."

Holiday glanced askance at him, and the ninja's mind went into overdrive. What did that look mean? He frantically looked through his mental database of Holiday's looks (which was embarrassingly extensive, he realized now) and eventually decided that the look was either one of disappointment or curiosity. _Disappointment? Why would she be disappointed? Maybe I should have said more about the room, like how I love the pizza slices stuck to the computer screens, and the way the monkey is throwing nachos about like confetti_. After a bit more mental turmoil, Six decided to just slide away and…check on Caesar. Yes, that's right, he's going to check on Caesar, and regrettably cannot stay here any longer. Perfect.

And with that, the highly-trained ninja quietly skulked his way over to the door, careful to avoid Holiday's gaze. Luckily for him, her narrowed eyes were locked on her sister, watching like a hawk as Beverly mingled with the crowd, making sure that nobody acted too freely with her.

"Six, wanna come over and see if you can toss this piece of cake into Calan's backpack from the other end of the room?"

Six glanced briefly at Rex, who was currently slung between two scientists and appeared to be drunk on attention. That, or the grape juice Six could see staining the front of his shirt. Six mused over the question for about a tenth of a second, then pointed to the far corner of the room.

"Why is Noah trying to dance on that table in his underwear?"

Rex nearly snapped his spine turning around just in time to see Noah (fully clothed, of course) close his phone, having finished exchanging study plans with Claire. He had, after all, missed the past week or so of school, what with the emergencies at Providence and the current celebration, and needed to get back in the game if he was going to have a shot at that scholarship. He looked back at Rex quizzically, then checked a mirror to see if something was on his face.

Rex turned back around just as quickly, only to catch a glimpse of Six walking away as the pneumatic door closed behind him with a hiss.

* * *

><p>Six breathed a sigh of relief as he exited the room, and decided to go to the coffee room instead of César's for a quick pick-me-up. He'd cut through the cell blocks on his way there.<p>

It would get him there quicker.

xxXxx

A/N – So, sorry about the long delay with the updates: however, two weeks is looking like the gap between each update. Of course, if I get a day off of college I'll probably put one up, and now that the SAT's are done, I should have more free time. Anyway, thanks for sticking with this story! As a first-time author, I've only recently discovered how much a single review means – but I'm not kidding, if you review, you'll make my day!

**YellowAngela**: My first reviewer! (Nice profile pic). Actually, the story never explicitly mentions how Hunter's wife dies – all we hear is _his wife turned three months ago_. That's it. I assumed she became incurable and neutralized for two reasons: One, if she was incurable it would partially explain why Hunter hates Rex so much (false hope, etc.). Two, I needed Hunter to be a villain, and if his wife was still alive to be cured by the New Event, he would probably reform. Ergo, wife needed to die.

**FloatingPizza**: Thanks! I like that you appreciate the sympathetic Hunter slant here: I've always loved dark, brooding figures on paths of vengeance. A classic example is Scar from Fullmetal Alchemist.

**YourWorstNitmare**: Thanks for the detailed review! I didn't think that my flashbacks made Hunter seem insane, although I suppose that's your opinion. Also, his backstory was clichéd mainly because I didn't want to spend _too_ much time on the guy – while I love his character, I'm trying to keep this story as close to canon as possible, and anything more complicated than _Providence killed my incurable Evo wife_ would certainly come across as excessive. What, that story's not twisted enough for you? But thanks for the input.

And now, a poem.

_Of all cartoonists on this earth,_

_Man of Action is the first._

_But why cannot that hopeless bore,_

_Create for me a Season Four?_

xxXxx


	4. Breakout

A/N: Sorry the chapter's so short. It's just a quick summary of Hunter's escape.

_A few minutes earlier,_

_Providence Holding Cell 7_

If Hunter had had any hair on his smooth-shaven head, he would definitely be tearing it out. As things stood, he would have cheerily settled for the next best thing: ripping out his block mate's hair. Unfortunately, he was currently unable to satiate either of his bloodthirsty urges, and so he had to resort to menacing whispers.

"What do you mean, you can't open the door? I just told you the key, so punch it in!"

"But I can't see the keypad! What happens if I punch in a wrong code?"

"If you do that, an alarm trips, the guards come running, the escape attempt is foiled and we get to rot in this paradise until a court decides to sentence us to life in prison with no parole on the charges of attempted murder and vandalism, so get moving and don't screw up!"

"You take things too seriously, has anyone ever told you that? Lighten up! Tell you what, –"

"No, _I'll_ tell _you_ what – open the door now!"

"Don't you think we should take some time to savor this moment? You know, taste the impending freedom, glory in the approaching liberty, and luxuriate in the –"

"If you don't type the code in soon, there will be no 'impending freedom', there'll be 'impending visit to maximum security cells!' with an approaching firing squad to glory in, so hurry _up_!" Hunter was getting on edge.

"But don't you feel the electricity in the air? This is a big moment! Why, it could be –"

Hunter nearly put his head between his hands and wept. He pulled himself together only by reminding himself of how close to liberty they already were, and how he would not ruin this plan by losing his temper. After all, it was pretty much a stroke of genius getting this fool to distract the guards so he (Hunter) could surreptitiously spy the code out, but in fairness the guards were absolute blockheads. Now all he had to do was get his "partner" (Gatlocke had insisted upon the title. Well, actually he had wanted to be called "Super-Exalted Kicker of Side", but he'd settled for "partner" after some discussion) to punch in the accursed code.

"Two…eight…five…is the seven on the left side or the right side of the keypad?"

"Left side."

"My left or your left? Oh well, here goes nothing…"

"No, no! That's the right! The other side! The _other_ _side_!" Hunter hissed in a mild panic.

"Oh, you don't say? Well then, here we go…"

Gatlocke punched the final number in at last, and all the cell doors in the block swung open noisily. Cain immediately stepped out of his cell – free at last. He moved swiftly to the door and stood quietly by the side, ready to disable anyone who might have heard the noise and come in.

When no one came running, he let his breath out a bit. _Maybe we might actually get out of this place undetected if everyone stays partying and the guards keep slacking off. Now we'd best get out of here before this Doctor comes a-calling and finds her patients have vanished_.

The first order of business, of course, was to grab some weapons. The duo slunk towards the prison lockup, padding silently along the brightly lit corridors. When they arrived, Hunter typed in the access code, smiling to himself when the door swung open.

* * *

><p>The prison lockup: home to all the goodies Hunter had had on him when he was caught, as well as several left over from previous sojourners in the cells. The place was loaded with grenades, flash bombs, ammunition, exploding shells and even a few packages of C4. Just the equipment a bunch of escaping prisoners needed.<p>

He quickly grabbed his cannon, picking up the bullets as Gatlocke darted to his confiscated prosthetic arm – complete with laser beams and sliding blades. Hunter also took his bag of surprises, as well as several Providence rifles lying in the lockup. It was a lot easier to sweet talk a guard into getting out of the way if you had a rifle jammed under his chin and a hulking, 16mm gun slung across your back.

_Of course_, Hunter thought to himself as Gatlocke fenced with his shadow, _it rather detracts from a person's fearsome image when your partner is a gibbering idiot._ Hunter smirked to himself as he watched Gatlocke trip over his flowing cape. _Now we just need to get out of this hell hole._ With that thought in mind, Hunter walked towards the nearest port.

He listened at the door for a good thirty seconds, focusing on any vibrations coming through the metal. Once he was certain that there were no footsteps or irregular blur of conversation, he entered the code. Cannon at the ready, he opened the door and stepped through with Gatlocke right behind him…

* * *

><p><strong>AN** - Again, I'm sorry for the small update, but this chapter was short and necessary, so I decided to post it immediately after my other one. Next time: back to Agent Six in the field, and some of our favorite crazy scientists (Yes, that's plural. Guess who)! Expect my next chapter sometime by the next weekend. Have a nice day!

**theWriterunknown**: Thanks! I've always fancied myself an amateur poet, and these short ones are easy to write. Your encouragement is appreciated.

**FloatingPizza**: It's kind of a personal thing: I'm trying to at least mention every character that the story mentioned: the Consortium (check), Hong Kong Evo (watch this space), Rombauer and Lanski (no luck yet), NoFace (on the way), etc. But I'm a big fan of Captain Calan's character as well! The whole double-crossing, loyal to the end, snidely sarcastic model – I love it.

And now for the poem (getting to be a habit, this.)

_There once was a Hunter named Cain,_

_Who walked and talked a big game._

_Because he was mad,_

_And certainly bad,_

_He often is labeled insane_

xxXxx


	5. Collision Course

A/N: Again, sorry about the gap: but, when all's said and done, being in college is a real drag. The good news is I got my SAT back and, while I'm not too happy about it, it should be able to get me into a half-decent college. Anyway, boring stuff about my life aside – please enjoy the story! This chapter's more light-hearted than the preceding ones (in my opinion, anyway).

xxXxx

_Some minutes ago,_

_Corridor 3, Block 7_

Six walked silently through the empty halls, absent-mindedly putting one foot in front of the other. _Maybe I should have stayed behind and talked with her? What if she thinks I hate her company now? What if she stops talking to me?_

Six's rational mind told him that there was no earthly way such a small thing could ruin their relationship. Still, he couldn't help worrying about it. _Why are the halls so empty? Where _is_ everyone? Where's the emergency? The flashing red siren? The panicked cries for help from some grunt who's tangling with an Evo? _

As he walked through the corridors, which remained stolidly silent, his mind kept rolling around in circles – The fighting was over, the world was saved, so he'd completed his mission and finished the war. However, _Providence_ was over too, so everyone would break off into the separate lives. Everyone included Holiday. Which meant, of course, that Six wouldn't see her again, which upset him. Of course, the fighting was over, the world was saved, so he'd completed his mission…

He walked past the door César's lab. Normally Six tried to avoid visiting Rex's crazy brother, but he really needed a distraction before his own brain killed any chance of him working in the same room as Dr. Holiday while remaining sane. Realizing Dr César was the best distraction in Providence, he stopped, retraced his steps back and opened the portal. Only when the doors were actually in the physical process of swinging open did the Agent remember why he generally avoided visiting César.

The man was insane.

* * *

><p>As Six had come to realize, the scene inside César's lab was not exactly conducive to peace of mind. He realized this belatedly, when a glass cylinder filled with some unidentifiable clear liquid flew straight at his head. Six dodged it narrowly and watched the jar break onto the wall behind him. He raised an eyebrow as it began to smoke and turn the metal plates black, then swiveled and looked inside the room.<p>

César had recently decided that he needed a collaborator to help him with his crazy experiments. Peter Meechum was perfectly willing to help with the technical aspects of César's work, but he wanted to spend time with his daughter and also patently refused to be César's guinea pig. The other Providence techies all just kind of shrugged and mumbled stuff like _Did you see that giant squid Evo?_ to each other behind their hands.

César had naturally looked to Holiday then, but due to her already gargantuan task of watching Rex all the time, she had declined, claiming fatigue and stress (Six personally thought that she simply had an intelligent regard for her own mental health). She had, however, given César a couple of her contacts in the upper echelons of the scientific community and told him to check with them.

César had originally wanted to hire Pete Volkov, and had contacted the man with the intention of recruiting him for science. Volkov, however, had been peculiarly unenthusiastic about the prospect (perhaps he'd been in communication with some of Providence's scientists). He politely declined César's request, saying that he had almost died in orbit too many times for him to want to flirt with death again. He then broke off communications, and was now happily disassembling protons with his wife in Belgium somewhere.

César then was forced to call the last person on Holiday's list – Rhodes, a close friend of Holiday's. Her pedigree was unmatched – a genius in every sense of the word, also known for her brash willingness to put life and limb on the line, as evinced during the orbital fight with ZAG-RS that had resulted in her floating through space for several hours. This act had greatly impressed most of the scientific community, and it perhaps reveals something of her character when one considers that her radio time had been spent almost entirely upon blackballing Bouvier vociferously from her spacesuit while she floated aimlessly about.

Initially recalcitrant, Rhodes' refusal to come to Providence had been something of a severe setback for César. César, out of options and desperate for a capable assistant, resorted to pestering her with ever-increasing salary offers until she finally broke and came over, if only to gain respite from the barrage of requests. The change was barely noticeable – Meechum was happy, explosions were regular, injuries were near-fatal, and all was well with the world. César Labs continued to churn out idiotic devices and ridiculous schemes at a fantastic rate, content to ignore and be ignored by the world at large. At least until the next squid broke out.

All this was in the back of Six's mind as he watched the chaos playing out before him. _In retrospect, this was a terrible idea._

* * *

><p>There appeared to be a gigantic multi-limbed contraption in the center of the room, with at least a hundred appendages wildly flailing about. Its arms waved randomly through the cluttered lab, knocking books of notes flying and sending the room further into the general disarray that had settled upon it. Each metallic arm gripped a jar containing various substances, ranging from bouncing creatures to bubbling red liquids.<p>

César was huddled at a computer screen at the side of the room frantically keying in commands while frantically dodging the many projectiles whirling around the room. As he worked, he kept shouting a steady stream of unhelpful things like, "Make sure the Sample Collector doesn't drop anything", and "Watch out for that jar of hydrochloric acid" to Doctor Rhodes, who was grimly hanging on to one of the arms. She appeared to be working her way to the frenzied center of the mass, climbing hand over hand along the metal structure she clung to like a limpet.

As Six was processing this, he caught a glimpse of the Lab's third member, Peter Meechum, poking his nose above an upturned desk on the far end of the room. The man looked almost complacent, sitting there peacefully while the room turned upside down. He continued looking complacent, right up until a well-timed jar of black slop hit the man's nose straight on, knocking him backwards and out of sight.

Six stood in the doorway for a moment, mentally blinking as he took the bizarre scene in. _What?_ Only when a transparent tentacle (that arose quite mysteriously from the goo splattered on the remains of the wall behind him) decided to make a grab for his face did he begin to move.

Nimbly dodging the pseudopod that had attacked him, Six leapt onto the nearest table, cluttered as it was, and threw one of his swords like a spear towards the heart of the machine. It was a time-honored ploy, a tactic that had yet to fail him – attack the heart of the thrashing mass to stop it all. Unfortunately for his scheme, the machine executed another contorted twist just then, deflecting the blade with an oddly shaped piece of concrete and sending the weapon spinning to the back of the room, where it impaled itself inches from Peter Meechum's face.

Meechum's shocked eyes took in his filthy reflection on the meticulously polished blade for a scant instant, before rolling into the back of his sludge-covered head as the scientist collapsed into a dead faint.

"Six!" César called, finally noticing the ninja crouched on one of the desks. "_No es buen momento!_"

"Yeah, and try to keep the blades _away_ from the faculty, hmm?" Doctor Rhodes bit out while trying to crawl up the arm she was hanging onto.

Six quirked a physical eyebrow at this, and pulled out his second blade. Jumping onto a thrashing limb that nearly took his feet out from under him, he ran up the metal arm towards the heart of the machine. The limb changed direction contortedly, and he sprang off of it into the air, landing neatly on top of the machine's center while driving his katana through the heart of the computer box.

The device's appendages contorted once, violently, dislodging Doctor Rhodes from her perch and sending her careening into César, who barely had time to look up before getting a mouthful of Providence standard issue size-8 leather boot heel. A huge cloud of smoke billowed from the depths of the control panel, which sparked uncontrollably for a few moments before finally falling silent.

"Is everything all right in here?" Six asked, perhaps a tad unnecessarily, as he pulled his blade from the device it was embedded in.

"No, everything is most certainly not 'all right' in here, you idiotic – get _off_ me, you hog!" Doctor Rhodes snapped, as she unceremoniously flipped César off of her. As she stood and dusted herself off, she said, "The Sample Collector has gone berserk, and we now have this mess to clean up because some total _idiot_ thought it would be a good idea to recalibrate the device _before_ removing all the containers!"

César chipped in, "How was I to know what would happen if I tried to realign all the joints while attempting a cold reboot of the system? Although, I did see a fascinating reaction when the methyl mercapatan solution collided with the oxidized titanium powder…"

Six tuned out of the conversation here, and went to collect his second blade from Peter Meechum's side of the room. The man was lying face-up in a rather large puddle of black fluid that was shifting and roiling ominously. His eyes were closed, and Six might have thought that he was sleeping if not for the putrid liquid coating his face and body and the disheveled state of his clothes.

Six heaved the man's prone form onto a nearby gurney (accidents were so common in César's lab, the man practically had a mini-hospital right there) and wheeled the stretcher to the center of the room. Glancing back at the bickering pair who were still freely trading insults, Six left the room. Just another day at Providence labs, once the world's last hope.

Six checked his wristwatch. If he hurried, he might be back in time for the ending of the party. Six had no clue what BoBo had planned for the ending, but he was certain that it was highly dangerous and quite probably illegal, so he had to be there to make sure nothing got out of control. After all, it wouldn't do for anyone to get hurt _after_ they'd saved the world, now, would it?

This thought propelled him faster through the prison quadrant, his feet making absolutely no noise whatsoever on the reinforced steel floors. He was a few feet from the door and reached his hand out to the keypad when suddenly, the alloyed pane slid open, revealing a face that was somehow familiar…

xxXxx

* * *

><p>AN– So, you may have noticed that I played Rhodes here as the belligerent, snappish type of character – think Gwen from Man of Action's other production, only with triple the IQ points. In _Gravity,_ all we see of her personality is that she was friends with Holiday (Holiday looks visibly upset when Rhodes washes out of the hatch), she was quite bold (volunteered to help take down ZAG-RS) and was quite disdainful of Bouvier's magic program even before it failed. As for Six's time-honored ploy, that's a reference to the Cactus Evo (Father Jose) – another place where Six attacked a tentacled creature by going for the core.

**YellowAngela**: So far, I think I'm only missing Surge (or Serj – I'm not sure how to spell that), as well as the Numbers (One, Dos, Tres, IV and Five). Not quite sure how to work them in – maybe at the very end for a cameo appearance, or something. Thanks for the encouragement!

**theWriterunknown**: Thanks! Gatlocke's character takes a bit of work, but your review says that it was all worth it. I've read your story "Vanesse Kleiss", and would encourage you to keep at it – I've never seen a story quite like it, and I like what I'm seeing! Keep it up!

**FloatingPizza**: Thanks for the lengthy review, and thanks for reading the story so well – I can't tell you how happy that makes me (as cheesy as that compliment may be). About Caesar's name – thanks for that tidbit, I had no idea it actually had an accent on it. As you can probably tell, I've changed it throughout the story. Thanks! And about the poem – sorry, but I'm really just an amateur. The fact that you read it, though, makes me pretty happy, to say the least. Thanks so much.

And now, a poem. To celebrate the end of mid-terms and SAT! _Viva la revolucion!_ So...cold...(dies). Give me Liberty or give me Death! _El…Psy…Congroo_! Is that your Final Answer? Forty-two! (I need sleep…)

_Why the slow torture_

_Man of Action does not care_

_Give me Season Four_


	6. Completed Labor

_Three days and four hours after the New Event_

_Greenville, Ohio_

The silence lay heavily upon the room, broken softly by the rhythmic tapping of the keyboard coupled with infrequent clinks and rings coming from the tools being used. The lights flickered intermittently, illuminating the spent figure crouched over the mechanical monstrosity on the floor.

The exhausted man took a step back from his work, getting a good look at the device he had constructed. He looked at the tangled mess of wires and chips disgorged from the heart of the beast and Granted, it would not be winning engineering prizes for tidiness any time soon, but it was finished, and it was perf– _Is that flux responder in _front_ of the switchboard?_ His arms quivered as he corrected the sequencing.

Van Kleiss shook his head. His vision was blurring, and his fingers had taken to twitching involuntarily if he lost focus. To make matters worse, his functioning mind seemed to be asleep already, as it had allowed him to make a completely amateur error. This level of incompetence was unacceptable.

_Soon I can relax – once I've finished my work. That, of course, takes priority. After all, if I don't ensure my continued existence, then it's all for naught_, he thought, too weary even to berate his mind for talking to itself. He'd forgone such luxuries as wasting time rebuking himself: indeed, it was all he could do to keep his muscles moving.

Kleiss was utterly exhausted, a state of being that he had grown rather used to during his frantic run through time from the tachyon field that was Breach. In that time, he'd excused practically every breach of etiquette he'd committed – from talking to himself, to singing, to writing poetry, and going insane during his more boring decades. Still, talking to oneself was the first sign of madness after all, and should not be borne in a scientist of his caliber.

However, for the last couple of centuries, sometime in between being a Viking raider and a Spanish conquistador (he forgot which), Van Kleiss had done some soul-searching, which obviously required talking to oneself. Besides, he'd learnt the hard way that a millennium of just thinking in stasis with one's neural pathways active could get boring fast. Talking to himself was one of the least insane things he could have been spending his time doing (he tried going mad once, but got bored of that eventually). A few dozen decades ago, sometime during the course of one of his inner dialogues, he'd realized something very important.

He was losing direction.

* * *

><p>When he was younger, Van Kleiss had been ambitious. It was all so simple – he'd take control of the world someday, after a few years in high school. After all, he'd studied the existing government structure, and had decided that it could use some adjustments. Accordingly, he threw himself into his studies, which naturally were extensive and varied. By the age of twenty-three, he'd mapped out his life's course very practically – he would join a government funded research organization, work his work up the ranks, enter the higher superstructure, and secure a position of power. From there, he could manipulate the machinations of the system like a puppet-master and truly fulfill his dream of total control.<p>

Of course, when the outcast had grown up some more, he found a more realistic way to make his dreams a reality, signing onto the Nanite Project at the first chance he got. This was beyond his wildest dreams – placed in charge of a project that could make him the most powerful being in the universe.

He'd done so well: he'd hidden his intentions from everyone, had played the part of a _good_ researcher, and had completed work on the meta-nanites. He even managed to get rid of those two nosey parkers, Rafael and Violetta, although he couldn't get their son. Both their sons, in fact.

_And look where that got me_, Van Kleiss sighed mentally. _On the run from every functioning government on the planet, trapped in inter-dimensional limbo with a bunch of soon-to-be extinct creatures, doomed to an ignominious death unless I can complete this machine, and with no signs of ever seeing the meta-nanites again in this lifetime._

Which led him to the present: trying to restart his legacy desperately so he could resume…what? What was he working for? If his plan came to fruition, he would rule the EVO nation, but what was the point of that? He'd nearly had control of time and space not too long ago. Was this settling for less? Going from the Universe to a small country loathed by everyone…didn't seem like a reasonable trade. Where was he supposed to go from here?

Van Kleiss was broken out of his existentialistic reverie by a loud crashing outside the room, followed some shrill screeching and low grunting that he identified respectively as Keeper (as they had decided to call her) and Skalamander brawling again. Disturbed by his lapse in concentration, he returned his attention to the machine while trusting Biowulf to keep the two fighters away from him and the machine.

The machine – that fragile mixture of alloys and metals that would hopefully prove to be his salvation. He was basically working from his memories of an old prototype he had seen hundreds of years ago, before his journey through time, while he was cannibalizing the now-defunct Moses Laboratories (closed due to a sudden withdrawal of all funding) for equipment and data. That machine as he remembered it could isolate the bonds holding nanites together and supercharge them, turning an EVO into a super-EVO with enhanced abilities.

He couldn't believe it. A nobody from some cheap research facility had somehow managed to locate the nanite bonds – and had decided to weaponize his discovery! Of all the things he could have accomplished we that discovery, and the fool fell to his greed. Just another example of how poorly EVOs were treated by humans.

Anyway, Van Kleiss combined this with the information he had extracted from ZAG-RS' motherboard before that memory dump he'd committed way back in the desert, and had created a mish-mash of cables and transistors that could hypothetically turn back time – figuratively speaking, of course. If he could isolate the bonds of the currently inactive nanites and reprogram them with ZAG-RS' data while supercharging their bonds…he'd postulated interesting results.

Kleiss had no way to guarantee the planetary reaction when he powered his device up, as he had no prior data to work upon. One did not re-infect the entire globe with a deadly plague every other day, after all. However, he had been able to calculate that every nanite on the planet would be activated once more when he jump-started them, and the odds that any given random person would turn into an EVO would be around 0.06%, which was perfectly acceptable. He postulated that perhaps the nanite bonds in subjects who were EVOs prior to the Second Nanite Event would be more susceptible to his device's call, but that was mere supposition.

Perhaps more importantly, the nanite-infused soil in Abysus would be activated again, and he could draw from his reservoir of strength once more and begin to really focus on taking control.

_But all of that is in the future_, Van Kleiss thought to himself. _For now, this machine is of paramount importance_.

After double-checking all the soldering points again to ensure solid contact and giving the apparatus yet another once-over to ensure that everything was in the proper order, Van Kleiss stepped back. The programming was finished, and he was ready to go. He decided to conduct a mock trial to verify that all the pieces were functioning properly and that the code ran through the system correctly. However, just as he was about to turn it on, a knock sounded at the door.

"Come in", he called, just as all the lights went out. _A curious phenomenon_, Van Kleiss thought as his eyes adjusted to the lower level of light coming from the computer screens which remained on for a few seconds longer, drawing reserves from their shallow capacitors, before they too winked out, leaving Van Kleiss in utter darkness.

_How peculiar_.

* * *

><p>The doorway opened slowly, shafts of light filtering past the bulky figure shuffling through the narrow entrance. Floorboards creaking beneath his misaligned limbs, Skalamander sidled in, carefully maneuvering his bulk between the tottering piles of computer parts until he stood in front of Van Kleiss, mumbling and looking from side to side rather guiltily.<p>

"What is it now, Skalamander?" asked Van Kleiss, although he had a pretty fair idea of what was coming.

The green behemoth rumbled, "Master, an…incident involving the pylons has just occurred. The Keeper was throwing some of the ice creams vans around, and one of them, errm, kind of brushed by the generator out back..." Behind the green behemoth stood Biowulf, lurking silently. Kleiss gave him a look, to which Biowulf shook his shaggy head slightly.

Van Kleiss groaned inside, although he kept a straight face in front of the help. _There goes the electricity. So much for that test sequence I was going to run…_ The generator was probably wrecked. No point brooding over it, there were things that needed to be done, and soon.

"Skalamander, help me lift this platform to the open. Biowulf, find Breach and tell her to meet me as soon as she can."

As his helpers scurried to do his bidding, Van Kleiss sank into a cheap plastic chair gratefully, relishing the opportunity to rest his aching legs. His neck ached, and, now that he thought about it, his eyelids felt heavy from over three days of being kept open, staring at bright screens and dark corners. He inclined his head slightly, allowing his eyes to droop slightly, rationalizing internally that a few minutes of rest wouldn't hurt. In fact, they'd probably help. _And besides, the plan is already in motion. I just need to power it up. All the work is done, and I finally have some time to myself_.

Having placated his over-active upper brain, Van Kleiss allowed his head to rest upon the wall sideways, releasing himself into the eager embrace of sleep. He closed his eyes, and drifted off slowly, feeling a most relaxing sensation of falling slowly, spinning in circles gently, tossed to and from, as his consciousness sailed across the quiet waters of his brain…

Which, of course, is when Breach decided to show up.

* * *

><p><strong>AN**: Sorry about the slow updates, but college is murderous. That's a terrible excuse, I know, but it's all I've got. Still, like I said, this is probably the update speed: once around every two weeks, with more if I get a) random, inspirational visits from my Muse, or b) a ton of free time.

Well, now we all know what Kleiss has been working on so feverishly (if you hadn't already worked that out). I don't really know much about the meta-nanites method of reprogramming all regular nanites, but I do know a few things about ZAG-RS's information. Please follow the train of thought: In Gravity, ZAG-RS gained data on how to modify nanite's to self-destruct. Van Kleiss purportedly initiated a memory dump on ZAG-RS (yes, I know it could have been César's doing, but I'm giving him the benefit of the doubt here). Since Van Kleiss also ransacked Moses Laboratories (why not?), he now knows how to program nanites, and how to locate their bonds.

His machine is capable of isolating the bonds (like Moses could), and forcing the nanites to reactive by reversing the programming he received from ZAG-RS. This may be a bit of a stretch, but come on – this is fanfiction!

**YellowAngela**: Thanks for the info. I wasn't really sure of how to characterize Rhodes, but I'm glad you like it – it was kind of difficult, and required three good, solid re-watches of Gravity. I think it kind of sucks that neither she nor Volkov make an appearance later in the series – Volkov especially, with his dry wit and calm temperament. "It appears we are going to die...again", delivered in a completely deadpan voice.

**theWriterunknown**: Thanks: César's one of my favorite characters too – his genius intellect and bumbling, innocent personality make for a great character. I think his attitude is perfectly summed up in one dialogue from Haunted: [Rex]: "Oooh...is that some sort of nanite thing?" [César nonchalantly picks it up]: "Mango smoothie...but _this_ is my hyper-electromagnet that can disassemble a tank from a kilometer away. _(sips drink)_ And evidently it can also make deliciously creamy smoothies."

**Lily. **: Thanks for reviewing! It's nice to know that I'm not the only perfection-maniac out there. Thanks for pointing out the EVO-capitalization thing, which I'd completely missed. I've since corrected both the issues with Captain Calan's and César's names. Thanks for the compliments, and I hope you like where the story is going!

And now, the usual poem. Because tradition is stronger than steel. And yes, this really is a form of poetry.

_On a softened chair_

_In a dim and crowded room_

_In a quiet town_

_Having nothing else to do,_

_Am typing on my keyboard_

xxXxx


	7. The Forgotten

**A/N**: Sooooo…before we go anywhere, what d'you guys think of OC's? You know, random characters (like Mary Sues) pulled in for no reason other than to help the author relieve some personal fantasies? I've never really liked them (I'm only using one of them in a major role this whole story), but I find myself in something of a bind now. I have one character who needs to be a sort of Original Character, but he's really in the canon! In fact, he's a pretty big character, but we still have no clue what he's really like after the Second Nanite Event! I feel like this kind of makes him an OC, because I've basically made him the character that I want him to be, but he's really in the canon. What a conundrum.

For the record, this character has shown up before…somewhere. Hunter mentioned him in the second chapter, "Remembering Well", but it took up around one line, so don't worry too much about it. Although I do recall mentioning him in an Author's Note as well. And now it's probably pretty obvious who the new guy's going to be. Oh, well. Try to act surprised, at least.

Anyway, enjoy the extra super-duper long update. Hope y'all had a nice Veteran's Day.

Oh, and Claire plays the violin.

* * *

><p><em>Providence Holding Cell 6<em>

_Concurrently_

_Suddenly, the alloyed pane slid open…_

Six instantly ran some calculations behind his reflective shades – there was no reason anyone should be in this sector of the building now – all the grunts were partying, the scientists were with them, and Six had just seen Rex, the perennial wildcard, slung between two Providence agents. Concluding that the intruder was not one of the regular Providence staff, and was hence a potential threat, Six went into defense mode. He crouched low and slid both his blades out, swiveling his right hand till the blade was at his eye-level, prepared to take out the intruder when the door opened fully.

When the panel had slid away, Six flowed forward with practiced ease, placing the tip of the blade under the interloper's chin, around his Adam's Apple. His left hand was already reaching for the communicator to contact White and report a security breach.

Before Six could make the call, however, the mysterious intruder batted away the blade like lightning and responded with a blistering punch that nearly caught Six's face.

Acting on pure reflex alone, the ninja dodged nimbly to the side, charging forward and driving the hilt of his katana into the man's face. The tall figure staggered backwards into the wall, leaning on it heavily. He swayed a moment, then fell to one knee, grunting unintelligibly. While the assailant was distracted, Six got his first good look at the man.

He was tall, maybe six feet four, and had a carefully groomed head of black hair that had been knocked slightly out of array by the preceding scuffle. The few unkempt strands of hair were obscuring the man's eyes, and the hand gently palpitating the forehead removed any chances of facial identification.

The man's other hand was resting on the floor, supporting the bulk of his weight. His fingers were splayed out, pale digits stretched out like the legs of a spider. His fingernails were healthy and clean, neatly trimmed. The hand itself was thin enough for his tendons to be corded visibly underneath the skin.

He wore a casual t-shirt with jeans, and his sneakers were an off-white color. His upper body was lithe, and gave the impression of muscularity with agility. He looked built for running and fast movements, an appearance assisted by his narrow shoulders and skinny legs.

The man was rubbing his forehead softly and groaning in a pained manner, cursing quietly in a language that seemed quite similar to some East Slavic languages Six knew. The tone of voice sounded vaguely familiar to Six, like someone that he should have known. Just as Six was placing the voice, the man looked up.

His face was almost pallid in tone, the blotchy red mark on the upper cranium standing out atrociously against its milk-white canvas. The mouth was thinned visibly as the stranger bit down more moans, and the forehead was wrinkled with the pain. But the most striking part of the man's physiognomy was his eyes.

They were dark brown eyes that seemed to be shot with a tinge of red upon the sclera. Windows of expression, they stared out with a baffled intensity that seemed to remind Six of a caged bear that was angry. Angry at the world, and uncaring of who its wrath was inflicted upon. Six involuntarily flinched back a step, and just as quickly as the look had come, it vanished. It was replaced by the humorous, almost wry look that Six had gotten used to seeing.

"Well", the man said, smiling crookedly, "Hello to you, too, Six."

* * *

><p>Six sheathed both his blades and straightened. "Evan. What are you doing here?"<p>

Evan, the erstwhile No-Face, shrugged his thin shoulders, but the question was unnecessary. Six knew what Evan had been doing. After all, the man had been doing pretty much nothing else for the past several days.

All over the globe, formerly incurable EVOs were responding differently to being cured at last. Some had experienced total memory recall, and had been able to return to their families and normal lives. Others remembered memories as humans but not those as EVOs, and were able to reintegrate with their previous lives perfectly and completely. However, a few rare cases had lost all their memories, except those required for cognitive functions and basic, day-to-day life.

Evan was one of the unlucky few – the only documented specimen on record, as a matter of fact. He had been found in his jail cell unconscious after the Second Nanite Event, and when awoken, had mumbled things like "_Povtoryuyuchy holosy…pishly nareshti_," which had baffled everyone in Providence who didn't know Ukrainian.

He'd had no memory whatsoever of his time as an EVO, and had been rather shocked when shown the pictures of what he'd once been. Eventually, the Doc had decided to keep him under constant observation, for research purposes.

Evan was around 21-ish, although of course Holiday was just estimating when she said that. He was rather erudite, with an extensive vocabulary and a wry and indefatigable personality. His face was finely chiseled, and his fingers were long and delicate. He was lankily built, and his eyes normally had an air of education about them. All manner of information seemed to be inside his head, although his specialty seemed to have been history. He also had an unusually wide experience with instruments, playing Haydn's _Arabesque_ almost unconsciously when he first saw a piano.

He had also taken Annie on one date, a fact that Rex and Noah seemed to find incredibly significant. Of course, the 'date' had merely been a spot of browsing for possible college campuses that Claire was looking at, but it was memorable enough to earn the status of a legend at Providence. After all, Annie had come to visit, and no bones had been broken, which was in itself a world record…

* * *

><p><strong>Flashback commence<strong>

* * *

><p><em>Three days earlier,<em>

_Providence Headquarters_

Evan was wandering around the halls, taking in everything he saw with interest. He'd just woken up in this place, and was still coming to grips with it. There was so much to see, and all kinds of information to absorb.

After the Doctor had explained his situation and briefed him on his history, she'd set him loose with a smile. The aura of sheer unadulterated relief that permeated the building was infectious, and soon Evan was smiling along with everyone he met. Laughter was around every corner, and partying seemed to be on everyone's agenda.

While most people in his position might have been at least a little worried about having been dropped into a completely new Universe with no memory of the last one, Evan had taken the news of his amnesia in stride. His scholarly mind had analyzed his circumstances quite efficiently, and had determined that there was nothing for him to worry about. The images of EVOs (especially of himself as NoFace) had thrown him a little, but apparently all the troubles were over, and everything was fine. A very rational sounding voice was whispering inside him, telling him that amnesia was no laughing matter, but he suppressed it. Besides, everyone was having so much fun; it'd be a shame to ruin it.

"Come on, Claire, let's join the party!"

"Annie, this is important to me. Besides, it's _my_ future we're talking about. I know the world's just flipped upside-down again, but that's no excuse to ignore the coming deadlines."

"She's right, Annie. Making the right choice for college is crucial, and could influence the rest of her life. Let the girl take a bit of time over it, OK?" There appeared to be a young female with short blonde hair and light blue eyes arguing against a couple of teens: a blonde boy in a weather-beaten green jacket, with his arms slung around a shorter girl with copper-red hair and sea-green eyes. The redhead was carrying a portfolio that appeared to be overflowing with pamphlets of some sort.

"Stay out this, Noah. Besides, weren't you and Rex going to shoot some hoops, Mr. Nosey?"

"Something came up. The President of Germany wanted to thank him personally, so Rex had to skip out before we could finish. Not that it mattered much, seeing how badly he was being crushed…"

"Stop bragging, Noah, we all know Rex has never even gotten a point against you. I've never been able to figure out how you manage to work that into every conversation we have…"

As Noah sputtered indignantly against Annie's accusation, Evan managed to compile a brief list of the characters so far: Annie was the blonde girl, Claire was the redheaded girl and Noah was the blonde guy. Claire wanted to make a choice about college, and Annie wanted to party. Noah was siding with Claire (his girlfriend?), and Annie was lashing at him for that. Evan nodded, satisfied. A most excellent summation of the conversation so far. But who was this Rex character?

The redhead designated as Claire chimed in: "Yeah, lay off of Rex. You know he's paying for our college, right? Why, if it weren't for him…I'm sorry, can I help you? You seem to be taking an unusual amount of interest in our discussion. "

Evan blinked. What? "No, I'm sorry, I was just looking around."

The blonde guy, Noah, looked a bit suspicious. "Yeah? And why were you listening in on our _private_ conversation?"

_OK, think fast, think fast…_"I couldn't help but overhear that the young lady is considering her potential colleges?" he said, nodding deferentially at Claire, who bobbed her head.

"That's right."

"If I could offer my own input?" Noah looked dubious, but Claire nodded behind him. Evan nodded his thanks back, and said:

"I would recommend that you take the time to consider where you will be going, as college is an important step in your education. Unless you sit down and actively think about where you'll be going, you cannot hope to attain your dreams. Without the proper grounding in your field, gaining any foundations in your career will be next to impossible!"

He stood back and waved his arms fiercely, overcome with the passion of the moment.

"Besides, if you don't shoot as high as you possibly can for your life, are you not wasting the mind that was granted to you? Also, does education not provide for you for the rest of your life? Has not Aristotle said: "Education is the best provision for old age"? Will you while away your time in substandard halls of education, stagnant? Squandering your intellect?"

As his inspirational speech wound down, Evan realized that Noah, Annie and Claire were staring at him with a look that bordered on stunned. He also noticed that he was breathing deeply and felt mildly surprised. _Where did that come from? I don't remember having such firm opinions about college. Come to think of it, I don't remember much of anything else either…_

Claire was the first to recover. "Well, that settles it. Annie, I'm sorry, but I can't party. I've got some research to do."

And that was how Evan found himself sitting at a table in the Providence cafeteria with Annie, Claire and Noah, discussing the benefits and downsides of each specific college Claire was considering. Evan gestured at a brochure.

"How about this?"

Claire glanced over it, then made a face. "Grenadi Design School? Well, they sound great and all, but I hear they focus more on the digital design and architecture side of the arts. I'm looking for a more music-centric campus, one that can really broaden my horizons. Besides, I hear Grenadi changed its name to Tractor. Who'd want to go to a college named _Tractor_?"

Evan nodded in somewhat dubious agreement. He'd never really had anything against tractors, but he did understand her desire for a more musical college. He picked up another one.

"How does this look?"

Claire took the brochure, then dropped it like a hot potato. "Yeuch! Berklee College of Music! How gauche." She shook her head violently for a moment before returning to searching with Noah.

Evan, baffled, turned to Annie. "Gauche? What is wrong with Berklee? They claim to be the largest independent college of contemporary music in the world. Did I say something wrong?"

Annie was shaking her head and clutching her forehead in exasperation.

"Nah, it's nothing you did. It's just that Berklee is one of the best colleges in the world for _contemporary _music, especially percussion instruments." Annie stopped talking, as though that explained everything.

Evan, of course, was still in the dark. "Percussion? I don't understand. What has that to do with anything?"

Annie sighed in exasperation. "Do I need to spell it out for you? Fine, you know that Claire plays the violin, right?"

"Uh–"

"Well, now you know. Anyway, she's always had this deep-seated loathing of drums, tambourines, and other rhythmic instruments. Just the thought of going to a college where they'll be dedicated to studying nothing but those…well, she doesn't like thinking about it."

Evan nodded. It made perfect sense. It was only reasonable that the delicate sensibilities of a violin player would be shocked at the mere mention of percussion instruments. Clearly, she was quite serious about pursuing a career in music.

Evan's mind was taken away from his thoughts by Annie, who was moaning from sheer boredom.

"Come _on_, something happen, _please_!"

The chef in charge of the kitchen slumped, his head in his hands. Now she'd torn it. Didn't she know those words were the perfect way to jinx a normal morning? When the Blonde Widow started talking like that, there was nothing to do but get the mops ready and break out the second-best plates. The cafeteria staff moved a bit farther away from Annie _en masse_, afraid that the legendary bad-luck charm might affect them if they were too close. One of the weaker staff members actually turned and fled back into the kitchen, slamming the door shut behind him. The remaining servers shifted uneasily, prepared to deal with whatever came next.

Suddenly…nothing happened.

Evan looked around, feeling mildly surprised. _Funny, for a moment there, the room felt quite tense. Almost as though something was on its way…_

The cafeteria staff relaxed. The chef dared to breathe easy. Maybe this time, nothing would hap–

A few seconds behind cue, a foot kicked the door open mightily, and in strode a Hispanic teen in a red jacket.

"_Hola, hombres!_ I was looking all over for you guys!" He waltzed in and had Noah in a headlock before anyone could so much as blink. "What, thought you could bail on me, eh?"

Noah, while struggling to escape Rex's grip: "Oh, Rex, great to see you. Leggo my head and give us a hand instead, buddy."

Rex looked over and picked up one of the pamphlets. "College prep already? After the world just got saved? Noah, my friend, you never cease to amaze me."

Claire cut in. "Actually, Rex, he's helping me decide where I should go. Care to join us?"

The teen shrugged and released the blonde. "Sorry, never really given much thought to college. Never much cared for it: I mean, the Doc's cramming all the books she can into my head, so why torture myself further? Besides, I just don't care for that kind of thing."

Evan puffed up, irate. A lazy student! The nerve! Something had to be done about this travesty, so he opened his mouth to deliver a scathing diatribe that would put this heretic back in his place. However, Annie, noticing this, cut in quickly.

"Say, Rex! Have you met our newest member, Evan?"

Rex turned and noticed the man for the first time. "Huh. Who's he?"

Claire spoke from the other side. "He's just some guy we bumped into, you know, walking around…"

Annie piped in indignantly. "He's not _just some guy_, he's helping us sort through some of Claire's colleges."

Rex placed a scrutinizing eye on Evan. "Helping my friends, eh?" He looked the man up and down critically.

Evan felt mildly uncomfortable, as though he were being evaluated against an invisible sliding scale. Rex seemed to reach a decision, then stuck his hand out.

"I'm Rex Salazar. Rex to my friends. You can call me Rex, if you want to."

Evan looked at the hand for a second, then took it. "Evan."

Annie clapped. "Great! Now that introductions are done, I'll go grab us something to eat. Pizza sound good?"

There were no objections, so Annie ran off to place the order. Evan stood up as well. "I have to use the restroom", he said, walking off towards the bathrooms. Before he left, though, he turned around to speak to Rex.

"Just curious, why don't you feel the urge to get a college education?"

Rex grinned, then transformed his left hand into a Smack Hand. "When I've got things like these at my beck-and-call, why would I need to learn more about anything? I like trig, but that's pretty much it. Besides, I'm world famous, so I don't need much else from life."

Silence. Rex lowered his hand. The guy looked completely taken aback. "What? You _have_ heard of me, right? The Secret Weapon, Savior of the World? Any of that ringing a bell?"

Evan remained shocked by the fist for a moment more, then cleared his head. _Why am I so disturbed by this sight? It's not like I didn't see worse things than this in those pictures. Still, I'm feeling unusually aggressive for some reason. Best to play it safe__._ He scratched the back of his head and smiled. "Sorry, never heard of you. I'm new here, you see…"

Rex was confused. New? But he was famous all around the world! Hong Kong, New York, the entire UN – you name it, he'd been there. And this guy was European! There's no way he couldn't tell who he was – come on, the Smack Hands were universally recognized! So how…

"Hey guys!" Rex's musings were cut short by Annie's call as she ran back from the register.

She _ran_ back from the register. The cafeteria staff, who were going about their business as usual, took note of this with great interest. After a few shared looks and several serious nods, they executed their emergency plan. A few seconds later, they were all cowering under the counters, holding pots and pans over their heads while praying to their various deities. Having seen it in action, they all recognized and respected that indelible iron law – **Annie must never run**. Who knew what could go wrong if the sacred code was broken?

"I placed the order, so the pizza should be ready in five min–oops!"

* * *

><p>Evan was watching as it happened. He saw, with perfect clarity, Annie tripping over her own feet and bumping into Rex. He saw the boy's Smack Hand, already unbalanced from its own weight, lose its center of gravity and tumble down heavily. He watched the ridiculously heavy metal fist catch the edge of a nearby table, sending the piece of furniture tumbling over into a wall.<p>

And, what's more, he saw the transparent jug of water that had been standing on the table come flying through the air at his face.

Evan's eyes widened, and _something_ happened.

It wasn't as though time slowed to a crawl, or anything like that. Rather, Evan felt as though his body was what had sped up. His eyes took in the projectile flying towards his face, sending messages through his optic nerve. His brain worked overtime, neural impulses flying as he analyzed the situation subconsciously.

_Velocity: approximately 42 miles per hour. Time till collision: 0.34 seconds. Estimated impact point: upper splanchnocranial region. Results: cranial lacerations and contusions, certain fractured frontal plate, probable brain damage. Logical conclusion: evasive action required._

Evan immediately threw himself onto the floor so that he was staring up at the ceiling. The fluorescent bulbs shone brightly, dazzling his eyes momentarily as he adjusted to his new position.

_Reaction time: 0.26 seconds. Results: one broken mug, a rather large mess to clean up_.

Lying on his back, he could see the whole vista play out before him. The spiraling mug arrowed its way through the space his head had occupied a few moments before. The translucent glass caught the light from the ceiling and sparkled brightly with it, the pristine fluid within the container swirling, a mass of ever-changing light patterns and prisms. Evan could see all this happen as it passed him by, taking in every detail of the environment. He frowned internally. _A rather large mess to clean up? What a shame…_

_Angle of flight: 3.5˚ from current latitudinal position. Momentum of target: 2.7 kilograms per meter_x_second. Estimated muscle output required: 17% of full capacity. Most preferable alignment of digits for optimal interception being calculated._

Acting almost of its own accord, Evan's hand shot up from beside him. Reaching through the air, his fingers contorted around the handle of the flask as it flew by him. Twisting his wrist at exactly the right time, he neatly flipped the jug around in mid-air, halting the water and catching it in the container at the same time. He then curved his wrist immediately so that it was holding the water level with the ground, ensuring that not a single drop was spilled.

He straightened himself up, placed the jug neatly on a nearby table, and turned and walked to the bathroom, leaving a group of stunned teens behind him.

_No mess to clean up now._

And then: _Now how_ _in heaven's name did I do that?_

* * *

><p>As Evan walked out, Annie whistled. "That was pretty cool."<p>

As he watched Evan stroll into the bathroom, there was just one question on Rex's mind.

_Who is this guy?_

Five minutes later, they were all sitting around the table, digging into the largest pizza the traumatized cafeteria staff were capable of making. Rex was taking a look at some of the colleges for Claire, and pulling out suggestions at random. "How's this one?"

Claire looked at it for a moment before shaking her head. "Marist University. They only offer a minor in music."

Rex, nonplussed, rallied quickly and presented another. "What d'you think of this?"

She spared it another rapid glance, then scoffed. "The Lübeck Conservatoire? You do know they spat out David Garrett, that speed-playing violinist, right? How modernistic can you get?"

Rex, utterly defeated, caved in and gave up. He turned to Evan in despair.

"Come on, man! Back me up here!" No response. Rex peered over at the man.

"Evan? Hey, Evan, what's up?" Evan snapped out of his daze and handed a brochure to Rex somewhat automatically.

"Hmm? Oh, here. Take a look at this one."

"The Tchaikovsky National Music Academy of Ukraine? What a mouthful. What's so special about this, again?"

Claire looked over. "Oh, the Kiev Conservatory. Yeah, I took a look at them. They had some pretty impressive qualifications for piano – it was founded by Tchaikovsky and Rachmaninoff. after all. I looked at their site, though, and it seems they've lost some of their faculty, so they're not as elite as they used to be. Besides, they're focused on piano, and I play the violin. I'd heard that they were going to…"

Evan tuned her voice out for the roaring in his ears. _Kiev Conservatory? Why does that sound so familiar? And why does the piano sound so alluring?_

Rex stood up and stretched. "Weeeell, it's been fun and all, and I wish you luck on your quest, but I must be off now. Later all."

Noah stood up. "Dude! Not cool! You can't just bail out on my date _again_! Who's going to stick with Annie? What happened to 'wingman'? What happened to 'best friends'? What happened to–"

Rex waved an arm. "Sheesh, calm down, man. It's not my call, Holiday wants me to come in for another exam. This time its for the Royal Society of London, or something, and my awesome presence is required."

Noah gave Rex a scorching look, which withered the young man's confidence a bit. He twiddled his thumbs a bit awkwardly and looked at the ceiling. "Besides, I may or may not have arranged to meet Circe in the lab in five minutes…but that's not the only reason! I swear!"

Noah sighed, then shrugged. "Fine, Rex. Thanks for ditching me…again."

Rex winced and walked out the door, hands in his pockets jauntily. He paused midway, though, and turned around. "Besides, bro, Annie's got her own chaperone to replace me."

"Huh?" said Annie. This was news to her.

"Huh?" said Noah. Where? Who?

"…" said Claire, who had a fair idea of what was going on.

"Ummm…" said Evan, who _also_ had a fair idea of what Rex meant.

"See yah, Noah! I'll meet you in the ICU later!" Rex hollered over his shoulder. And with that parting shot, the Savior of Humanity walked off down the hallway, laughing quite maniacally.

Evan stood up. "Well, I must be off too." _Got to find more information on that Kiev Conservatory place._ "I find that I have some research to attend to."

Before he'd taken more than a few steps, he felt something attach itself to his lower arm. He looked down to see Annie looking back up at him.

"Great! We'll go together. Those two are lost in their own world anyway."

Evan looked back and had to agree: Claire and Noah were, indeed, quite oblivious to their surroundings as they argued ferociously over the pros and cons of private and public colleges. After a moment of contemplation, he decided.

"Fine, you can come with me. I'm looking for information on the Kiev Conservatory. Do you know where I could find some?"

Annie scrunched up her face. "A conservatory? Well, you could always check the Benjamin High School database – they've got like a bazillion colleges on record there, so they probably have something about the one you're looking at.

Evan thought about it, nodded. "Very well, then. Lead the way."

And that's the story of how Evan and Annie spent an afternoon together, chasing down all kinds of leads on the college. At the end of the day, Evan had narrowly evaded no less than seven near-fatal accidents (one of which involved an open gas tank on a jump jet, a nearby grunt's cigarette, and an unfortunately placed pile of munitions) and had found very little data regarding the college.

Still, it was a start.

* * *

><p><strong>End Flashback<strong>

* * *

><p>Six remembered that day. Rex had been jabbering away merrily about how the Royal Academy had fawned over him hand-and-foot, when suddenly he stopped mid-sentence. Six, concerned, turned around to look at his charge's face. Rex's mouth was open, and his eyes were bugged out and seemed to be fixed on something located to the ninja's right, in the Providence library. Six swiveled to look inside, and saw the newly cured NoFace studiously hammering away at a laptop, with Annie "The Blonde Widow" hanging over his shoulder, feeding him keywords and advice every once in a while. They seemed to be working together well, and Six had no idea what Rex was so bothered about.<p>

However, as Six watched, Annie gestured wildly, knocking a passing researcher backwards onto a circular table. Acting like some kind of impromptu Rube Goldberg machine, Six watched with interest as the round table, which had been knocked on its side, rolled in a semi-circle until it collided with the bookshelf directly behind Evan's table.

_Fascinating. Hard to believe she does things like that unintentionally._

The bookshelf swayed a moment, dislodging a few books from their positions, before committing to the plunge and falling forward, accelerating with each passing instant. Six tensed, preparing himself for a rapid sprint in. If he was lucky, he might be able to get that guy out from under there in time…

However, before Six could make the move, Evan calmly stood up, folded the laptop and picked it up under his arm. He looked up at the falling books and shelf approaching him, and Six had the uncanny sensation that something outside of his range of perception was going on. Suddenly, like lightning, almost too fast for Six's eyes to follow, Evan dashed out from the path of the shelf, rolling his way out from under the crushing barrage of books and wood that struck the ground an instant after he left, pulverizing the table he had been working at.

Evan stood up, dusted himself off, and turned to Annie, who was helping the researcher back to his feet.

"I'm sorry, sir, I didn't mean to startle you! Are you sure you're fine?" She turned around and shrieked.

"Evan! What did you do to this place? What happened? Where's my laptop?"

"Oh, nothing. Your laptop's here," he said, nonchalantly strolling out of the room with Annie trailing behind, yammering about how that was _the third time today_, or something.

Six stood still for a moment, then shook his head. _How did he…ah, I see. So Holiday's theory is correct after all._ He turned back to Rex, who was still in a state of semi-shock.

"Six? Who is that guy? Really?"

Six thought about the question. "A friend of mine."

Rex pondered the reply, before staring off in the direction Evan had gone. Rex was unsure about the man's background, but the fact that Evan had escaped from an extensive date with the Blonde Widow with nary a scratch was impressive enough to earn him instant friendship status with Rex. Besides, he and Annie had hit it off fairly well, so that was all right too.

* * *

><p>As far as Evan's amnesia went, Dr. Holiday was unsure as to its exact cause. Holiday had postulated that he must have been so integrated with the nanites – using them to talk and control non-sentient EVOs – that his neural pathways had been wiped from their continual neglect and abuse. After all, Evan's case was quite unprecedented – no one else's nanites had formed a completely separate entity with its own individual personality. It was quite unique, and Holiday intended to study it for all it was worth.<p>

Ever since he had been cured, the man had been hanging around the prison cells, staring at the walls, hoping that familiar surroundings (he _had_ been in that jail for almost a year, after all) would help jog his memory. So far, no dice, but Evan wasn't going to give up hope.

Lately, he'd been hanging out with Rex's schoolmates and old Hong Kong gang. It was a fairly common sight to see the whole group lounging around in the cafeteria, fighting over pizza slices uproariously.

"I am just wandering around, waiting until school is out. I have placed several applications to be allowed to visit Kiev, but so far they have all been denied."

Six nodded, and thought privately of another of Holiday's theories that she expounded on frequently. Holiday thought that former incurable Evos could retain certain characteristics of their former forms – something about muscle memories and some such science-speak.

She had come to this conclusion after watching Cricket leap almost eight feet clear into the air while playing basketball with Rex one day, performing a smooth back-flip before dunking the ball solidly. Holiday immediately ran some tests, and found that some traits _had _been kept over – Walter's bones had an unusually high density, Cricket's muscles could release energy explosively, Tuck was able to win every dodge ball game he played, and Circe's shrieks could still disturb wild animals and break glass. Evan, however, was the most unusual of the lot, as evinced by his recent tussle and ability to survive in close contact with Annie.

Evan had integrated well with Providence, and since he'd had no home to go back to, Holiday had arranged for him to stay with the soldiers. Knight wasn't too happy about the arrangement, but Holiday had managed to pass Evan off as an experiment in progress. However, Evan was not normal – even by the standards of Holiday's new theory. The first sign of any substantial differences was when Evan played cards with BoBo and caught the chimp with two aces taped to the bottom of his chair and a few dozen up his sleeves.

Evan saw red – literally, security footage later showed that his sclera and retina were coated with blood. He then slammed the metal table so hard it bent in half like tinfoil, aimed a colossal blow at BoBo that dented the reinforced wall behind the chimp, and moved fast enough to catch the fleeing primate (who could move _really_ fast when in trouble) in around two and a half seconds.

The bizarre thing about the incident was that when Evan had pinned BoBo to the ground and looked ready to tear the primate's gullet out, the red drained from his eyes and Evan collapsed. He had no memories of the occurrence whatsoever for around half-an-hour, which he spent mostly in a daze, speaking in his native language.

"_Znovu…poodyntsi…"_

When the Doc had run some scans on the comatose Ukrainian, some interesting features immediately showed up. Evan's muscle mass was around 25% larger than average males his age, and his bones contained an extremely high amount of calcium. His reflex tests put him almost on par with Six (almost, but not quite), but the most peculiar part was not physical at all. As Evan himself said later, somewhat poetically:

"I was in control – let us be clear on that. I was not helplessly standing by while some evil doppelganger took control and wreaked havoc – no. I could see what was happening, and everything felt normal, although the world did have an odd tinge of light red, almost pink. The only difference was the pain, the pain and the rage. The pain was crushing, like my very bones were being crushed until they were powder, while my blood seemed to have set itself on fire. Every fiber of my being groaned under this burden, which leads me to the rage. It was all-consuming, the hate you see in the eyes of circus tigers prodded with sharp sticks, the baffled fury of a wild eagle whose wings had been clipped – a sheer, blindingly defiant howl at the world. It seemed quite _right_ to attack Bobo at the time, and I fear that grave things would have happened had I not recovered myself just then."

Since then, Evan had entered his "rage mode" (as Rex had dubbed it) four more times – each time when something made him angry or (occasionally) surprised him, although his reflexes usually ensured that nothing surprised him. Holiday and Six had privately discussed the viability of Evan's retention of his former NoFace personality as a schizophrenic side that surfaced when Evan's temper rose.

The only person in Providence fast enough to shock him into primal defense regularly was Six, who was currently guiding Evan to the nearest infirmary, which happened to be in Providence Holding Cell 7. There was another medi-kit at the prison lockup, but that lay beyond Cell Block 10, three levels down.

Six entered Cell Block 7, the former residence of Evan, took one look into the dank and abandoned hallway, and called White.

"Knight. We have a breach in Corridor 3, Cell Block 7."

xxXxx

* * *

><p><strong>Unusually lengthy AN for an unusually lengthy chapter**: And that's Evan for you! A nice guy, with a fairly obvious past (there's really no mystery there). This was actually going to be a short chapter, but became a monster on Veteran's Day, where I sat down, lost track of time, and got up in a daze almost six hours later, at eleven with an extra 4,000 words magically plonked down. I should probably see a doctor about it.

In other news, I've managed to include Annie, Claire, Noah and Rex (who, bizarrely, had had just one speaking role before this) in my story, moving me that much closer to finally including everyone. Sorry about the lengthy flashback, but it was necessary to establish Evan's character.

Now, an **Important Note:** I have nothing whatsoever against the colleges of Grenadi/Tractor, Marist, Lübeck, Berklee or Kiev. They're just tools I'm using to add verisimilitude to the story, and I don't know the first thing about them (other than the fact that all the information I mentioned is accurate, to the best of my knowledge). I have no antipathy at all towards David Garret: the world's fastest violin player. In fact, I strongly advise any fans of Coldplay's _Viva la Vida_ song (like myself) to check out his frankly _amazing_ violin rendition of it, which I'm currently looping on Youtube.

Translations, for you non-Ukrainians out there: _Povtoryuyuchy holosy pishly nareshti_: Повторюючі голосі пішли нарешті, meaning "echoing voices gone at last". _Znovu poodyntsi_: знову поодинці, meaning "all alone again. God bless Google Translate! (and my sincerest apologies to any real Ukrainians out there, whose language I fear I may have just butchered).

Claire's playing the violin for no other reason than I will it to be so. As to why she's considering musical college, I have no fancy explanation other than the following: why not? We've established that Claire is really smart (in "Haunted", she took advanced classes where she learnt about neodymium alloys), so she's in a position to do what she wants in life. Just a random thought: does anyone think Annie would fit playing the drums? I suppose that's a bit too _Kids on the Slope_, so I'm not going to include it, but still: what's it like as a concept?

I'm just curious now as to whether you, the reader a) actually bothered to read this far into my superfluous note, and b) think Evan's an OC. I tried to give him a unique voice (which sounds stilted, even to me), but I can't shake the feeling that he's not in the canon, so I shouldn't have him. Still, I like the character I've made him into, so I'm gonna stick with it. But tell me your thought's, m'kay?

**YellowAngela:** Yeah, that does sound evil…on the other hand, at least you're having fun at work!

**FloatingPizza:** Thanks! The scientific jargon just kind of spews itself onto the page: I'm not entirely sure if it makes sense, but at least it's readable. Your encouragement is greatly appreciated, and I'm glad you like my plan of including everyone – it's kind of tough, but I've finally found a spot for Rombauer and Lanski, so that's cool then.

**TheWriterunknown:** I hope this chapter satisfied your expectations. I try to keep my characters consistent, but it gets tricky when they start arguing in my head.

**Lily. :** That was quite possibly the most encouraging thing anyone has said to me so far. Thank you, from the heart. By the way, I notice from your profile that you joined only recently – welcome to the Fanfiction community! I apologize, but your name, Lily(period)S(period)Richards simply refuses point-blank to enter itself onto the site. It consistently saves itself as Lily., with nothing else after it. Interesting problem, and I don't think I've ever encountered it. Any help from anyone would be appreciated.

And now, the poem. I made it extra-long, confusing and Inception-ish. Because _Code Geass_ deserves that. And because _[spoiler alert] _Lelouch Lamperouge is not dead (*whispers* _he's the cart driver!_). That's why.

_If I were Rex, and Rex were me,_

_I'd watch my show on a TV._

_Laugh and cry and watch m'self dance,_

_A clichéd and tired ol' teen romance._

_-...-_

_Of course, _I say_, if he were me,_

_I realize he'd be quite free,_

_To type in words, and songs, and odes,_

_While cumbered in my small abode._

_-...-_

_So do you know if this is me?_

_Or is it true that I could be,_

_A teen whose powers let me swirl,_

_From off a screen, into this world?_

_-fin-_


	8. Incursion

**A/N** – Hope y'all had a great Thanksgiving! I know I did. In this update: more angsty what-not with Hunter. I'm sorry about the late update (see bottom of page for totally legit excuse), so I won't keep you away from the story one moment longer!

* * *

><p><em>Concurrently,<em>

_Corridor 3, Prison Lockup_

Hunter and Gatlocke moved rapidly through the doorway, finding the corridor beyond it empty. The duo walked stealthily through the abandoned hallways, ostensibly searching for the nearest exit. Hunter, however, had a much darker aim in mind.

_There's no power on the face of the earth that can make me leave this place before I finally finish this thing, once and for all_.

Using the blueprint he'd drawn up in his head based on his limited excursions through Providence beforehand, the revenge-crazed man followed the line in his head; the line that led straight down to the Providence cafeteria, where the party, and, perhaps more importantly (to Cain, at least), where Rex was.

Hunter's breathing steadied as he prepared himself for serious combat. Every one of his senses was sharpened to the utmost, and he attuned himself to the very air that he passed through. His muscles tensed beneath the tough fabric of his clothes, and his eyes roved everywhere in their sockets, taking in every inch of the peripheral view. The ski mask covered his face perfectly, and Hunter was secure behind the familiar material of the covering he wore.

The feel of his mask brought back memories…memories of a time so long ago that it seemed to be almost an entire lifetime ago. Before he'd gotten on the bad side of Providence and been thrown in prison. Far, far back – when he had stood between humanity and the encompassing darkness with nothing more than metal bullets and salty sweat.

Back then, things had been very different. The media had supported him, the people were behind him one hundred percent of the way, he'd had a private army prepared to follow him to the death, and he was incredibly close to fulfilling the oath he'd sworn.

_The assembled men clutched their weapons ferociously, waving them in the air as their leader appeared. Standing on an overturned vehicle, the man surveyed the crowd before him. Raised fists pumped in the sunlight as he posed before them, wielding his cannon, the cries of "Hunter! Hunter!" carrying to the camera lenses – glinting as they watched it all._

As he stalked down the stairs, ignoring his partner who was currently three yards ahead of him, calibrating his weapon and humming "Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star" under his breath, Hunter's thoughts moved from the fell past, to the future. What was left in an EVO-less world for a man who had committed himself to eradicating their kind from the planet? Hunter couldn't imagine. Maybe he could look into bounty hunting.

Unprompted, as though from a previous life, memories floated up from the depths of his mind. Memories of a time when he was happy as nothing but a simple construction worker, looking forward to the end of the day when he could go home for a slice of hot apple pie and a quick kiss on the cheek…

Of course, those light memories inevitably led to the black ones, the ones he had to actively force his mind away from. His eyes twitched involuntarily and he clenched his fingers spasmodically as he remembered what had happened to him; no: what had been done to him.

Ever since his wife had turned, Hunter had been studying EVOs exhaustively. He stalked them at night in the parks when they roamed in their packs, he studied flying Evos with a pair of binoculars; he even visited Kiev once, trekking to the edge of the hell-hole colloquially known as "The Bug Jar" to catch a glimpse of completely 'wild' EVOs.

He watched giant scorpions ferociously attack one another in the desert. He saw a white hyena the size of a wolf casually destroy a steel power pylon. He investigated a Hong Kong crime syndicate that put the Russian Mafia to shame. And through all this observation and classification, he came to his first overwhelming premise – All EVOs were naturally villainous. It was obvious, really: just looking at the news proved his point. Diane Farrah could always be counted upon to be spewing vituperative slurs against EVOs in general.

The second premise that Hunter had reached was that EVOs were a plague, a disease, a malady of the worst kind. Anyone who wasn't turned was going to be killed by them, and the only way to wipe out the infestation was the scorched earth policy – destroy them all, and make sure they stayed dead. Hunter threw himself heart and soul into his mission, burning with an undying hatred of all EVO-kind.

Feelings of festering hatred and anger were buried deep into his soul, coming to the surface when word came to him that Providence – Providence! The organization that had _killed_ his _wife_! – was using an EVO for a secret weapon. It was only rumor, but Hunter knew the truth. Then, when news had gotten out about the identity of the secret weapon in question, Hunter lost it.

It was the kid. The teenager. The one who'd been there…that day. The day that everything changed. That…freak…was responsible for the train wreck that was now Hunter's life, and now Providence was trying to say that he _protected_ people? No…he had to be killed. Someone had to put a stop to this madness, and Hunter Cain was willing to take the job.

* * *

><p>It wasn't an easy road. Sometimes, he'd wake up in the middle of the night, unaccustomed to the vacuum by his side. He'd feel around the bed for his wife's comforting presence in a daze, then, when he'd woken up fully, remember why she wasn't there and crush the moisture that rose unbidden to his eyes. Times like these became so common that he'd taken to working late into the wee hours, falling asleep at his desk rather than go to his bed.<p>

One night, he'd been working on a new weapon to take down Providence when he hit a roadblock. In his frenetic studies on the nanite-virus things, he'd discovered that they were tough buggers. Fairly indestructible, the data on them could not be wiped by magnets, most acids had no effect upon them, physical destruction of the tiny devices was so impractical as to be ridiculous, and even the principle of entropy didn't seem to apply to them!

In his trawling that night, though, he made a breakthrough. He managed to get his fingers on a copy of an obsolete video report from one of the earliest Providence trials conducted on the nanites themselves.

.

.

.

A middle-aged man wearing a lab coat, with immaculately combed hair and reflective glasses, appeared on the screen. A young assistant was standing behind him looking rather uncertain about something: she opened her mouth as though in protest, but said nothing and closed it again without saying anything. The man cleared his throat and straightened his tie. Looking directly into the camera, he began speaking in a nasal voice.

_Experiment number one hundred and thirty-two, the forty-sixth sample to be entirely deconstructed on a molecular level. Lead researcher, Doctor Fell, with Rebecca Holiday as assistant. The object of today's experiment will be attempting to formulate a cohesive map of the atomic structure of the nanites through complete disassociation. This experiment has been modified slightly, with the energy input being doubled from the last time, whi–._

_Which was twice the one before that, which was twice the one before _that_, and so on. Tell me, doctor, what's our electricity bill? _Holiday sniped as she walked by holding a clipboard.

_Silence! Only through the application of immense energy will the secrets of the nanite be revealed. Prep the sample for deconstruction, assistant!_

Holiday walked to the control panel, grumbling all the way, _I'm not your assistant, weirdo. Why do you keep calling me that? I have three PhDs, I'm clearly the smarter one here…darned psychopath_…She halted in front of the desktop and fiddled with the hem of her coat a bit nervously. _Ar- Are you sure this is the best thing to do? I mean, we could be learning about the creature as a whole, rather than just at the molecular level…_

Doctor Fell nodded impatiently. _We've discussed this, _assistant_. The Committee agrees with me on this, and I say we need more information on the nanite itself. If you have a problem with my methods, you are welcome to seek alternate avenues of employment at your earliest convenience._

Stymied, Holiday turned back to the keyboard. _OK, then…initializing molecular component breakdown. All sensors are prepped and the area is secure._

A look of intense, almost insane, joy flitted across the Doctor's face so quickly, Hunter wasn't sure he'd seen it until he played the clip back frame by frame. The man began murmuring under his breath, _The specimen is secured, radiation levels are acceptable, scanning devices are active…excellent. Disassociation reported a –_

Fell's words were cut off by an incredibly loud, piercing shriek. Excitedly, the scientist hastily stood up, fumbling furiously with something on the floor. The camera shook violently for a moment, before unsteadily turning around to reveal the deconstruction area, with Dr. Holiday standing outside it looking extremely uncomfortable with what was happening.

Hunter took in a sharp breath as he saw what was making the noise. Boxed in the chamber, frantically scurrying about for an opening was an infected thing: an EVO. Its mouth was enormous, taking up most of its body, which the teeth sticking out in front of it like knives, making for an imposing appearance. The creature scrabbled furiously about, bouncing from wall to wall like a pinball.

Doctor Holiday's voice rang out. _Sensors are reporting a 76% disassociation at the molecular level and rising. Threshold for molecular separation will be reached in approximately four seconds. The subject is oscillating rapidly in what would appear to be an indication of…ex-extreme pain._

As Hunter watched, the mutant shivered, in some form of severe distress. As Hunter was leaning closer to the screen to take a better look, it suddenly froze. A louder shrill than any that had come before resounded through the area; then, before Hunter's stunned eyes, the EVO…dissolved.

_Just like every other time_, Holiday mumbled to herself under her breath.

_Yes! Yes!_ the doctor crowed, watching his readouts flicker by, light glinting off his glasses. _We have one hundred percent breakdown! The micro-bots have been decomposed to its most basic elements! An overflow of energy is sufficient to damage the workings of the nanite enough to cause total failure and disintegration of the subject! With this data, I can take apart any nanite in the world! Do you hear me? I can take apart any nanite in the WORLD!"_

Holiday's voice cut in acidly. _Very nice, Doctor Fell, if our ultimate goal was destroying nanites. Now, how about we start working on a _cure_, instead of dissecting your 'spoiled meat'?_

Brought to sobriety by his co-worker's voice, Doctor Fell calmed a bit and set the camera down. _Yes, yes, of course. There's no need to worry. I just have to get a few more samples, and then we can reverse-engineer a cure from the data we've gathered._

_More samples? How many will it take to satisfy you?_

_Be quiet, girl. I hear that the squad from France has returned. And they've got that pesky arachnoid being that was causing such a fuss at the _Arc de Triomphe_. Once we've taken that specimen apart, we can consider working on a cure. Are you satisfied now?_

Silence, which Doctor Fell took to be a 'yes'.

_Excellent_. He turned back to the camera, still wearing that unsettling grin of his. _Recording is now concluded. Experiment number one hundred and thirty-two, with the forty-sixth sample, was a resounding succ–_

Hunter stopped the video. He studied the doctor's face as he exulted in his own perceived achievement. The man's eyes gleamed with a fanatical light, and Hunter spent a few moments just staring into the man's pupils, before turning the monitor off.

Hunter sat in the dark for some time, contemplating what he'd just heard.

_Take apart any nanite, eh? That could be useful._

* * *

><p>From that moment on, Hunter worked to perfect his weapons system. After all, the EVOs had the clear advantage in this war: it was only natural that the humans be able to fight back in the best way possible. With these thoughts and others running through his head, Hunter continued working late each night.<p>

After several weeks of poring over the data collected by Doctor Fell, he'd come to a vital conclusion. Like the doctor had said, overpowering the nanites could destroy them, although the power to do so was completely out of his reach. However, using the blueprints Fell had managed to retrieve from his many deconstruction experiments, Hunter was able to isolate the weak link in the system – the nanite power conduit. It was the weakest link in the entire construct, located at the foci of the nanite, and was the component that was most likely to fail. Hunter re-watched the video, paying close attention to the Doctor's words.

_An overflow of energy is sufficient to damage the workings of the nanite enough to cause total failure and disintegration of the subject._

Well, he couldn't just force the nanite conduit to short – that thing could take ludicrous amounts of electricity, meaning the Leyden jar bullet idea from _20,000 Leagues Under the Sea_ was a no-go. However, Hunter was not one to give up so easily.

After some more research, he came across low-wavelength electromagnetic radiation; or microwaves. While compressing a high-energy microwave into a single bullet was the work of several strenuous months, the end result was entirely worth it, as one round of ammunition could plow its way through several layers of nanite-infused tissue******.

Unfortunately, the sheer complexity of the bullet prevented it from being mass-produced. Nonetheless, he managed to factory out a small number – hand-made painstakingly by him and the crew. The small stockpile had been almost enough for the job: just a bit more, and he might have been able to wipe out that pest, Rex.

Of course, in the end the bullets simply hadn't been enough for the plan, and Hunter had wound up in prison. The irony of the situation was not lost upon him: betrayed by the very people he'd fought alongside to protect.

He'd kept a few of the bullets secreted about his person, just to be safe: in a hidden pocket, under his collar, generic places like that. Unfortunately, the vast majority of his microwave-ammunition had been spent, and was wrecked beyond salvaging.

* * *

><p>The sounds of revelry grew louder. As the pair tip-toed nearer to the whoops and cheers, Hunter's mind snapped back to the here-and-now. Reminiscence could come later, now was the time to make sure there <em>was<em> a later…outside of prison, of course. If they were discovered, he could reminisce all he liked in the darkest lockup Providence could dredge up. Finding that this idea did not appeal to him in the slightest, Hunter decided to save the reveries for later.

He crept to the door and crouched by it, peeping inside covertly. The handgrip of Hunter's cannon creaked painfully as the man's fist tightened upon it: he could see Rex. The freak was holding a piece of cake off-handedly, and seemed to be aiming it at a peacefully oblivious blond boy on the far side of the room.

All Hunter had to do to end the plague that had ravaged his planet for so long was reach over and shoot the kid, but it was out of the question. The crowd kept shifting so rapidly and mingling so freely that a straight shot was out of question. Besides, with that many eyes around, someone would probably see him before he could take the shot, ruining it all. Still, the sight of the last infected freak on the planet, literally within his grasp, was driving Hunter crazy. He was so close!

As time ticked by and the man waited for an opportunity to shoot the kid, his mind worked itself over anxiously. The pestilence that had been visited upon the world was almost eradicated, he was close, he was close…he just had to do this right and kill Rex.

Speaking of Rex, the boy in question appeared to be up to something. After having a furtive mumbled conversation with his chimpanzee, he looked somewhat guiltily at White's communication screen and touched a video screen, sending blue lines of nanites deep inside the system. Within a few seconds, White's head winked out as the screen went blank.

_What's going on? Why would Rex…cut communications?_

Hunter was nudged out of his bafflement by a whispered and inane comment from his partner regarding naming the mission "something like…Splinter! Yes! Operation Spli-" Hunter covered the idiot's mouth with a massive hand, gesturing to the interior of the room, which had suddenly fallen relatively silent. Risking another glance around the corner, Hunter was treated to an unusual sight – a primate lining up a row of cannons in a rather bizarre version of a 21-gun salute.

As Hunter watched, intrigued, the chimp turned and shouted something across the room about a "Grand Finale". He then pulled a fuse, and several massive bunches of confetti flew into the air with a sound of rushing air, floating gently back to the ground. This was followed by bursts of fruit juice, finely diced bananas, and even a load of cake.

The ceiling was completely covered in levels of goop, not that anybody cared. Hence, the only person that saw the red light blinking the alarm beneath half a layer of cake and some banana slices was Hunter, who decided that that was their cue to get moving.

"They must have re-wired the sound systems for the music; otherwise, the alarms would be blaring our location to the whole building," Hunter muttered to Gatlocke. The imbecile promptly got up and made as if to leave, twirling his cape merrily and mumbling something about 'dramatic exits'. Yanking the moron back down, Hunter stilled his breathing and steadied his cannon. The sub-sonic ammunition loaded into it would travel slower than the speed of sound, enabling them to take the shot quietly and pull out with no complications.

That was the plan, anyway.

"Aren't we leaving? I assumed that the light you pointed out was a warning and not a disco ball…hmm…a red flashing disco ball…definitely worth looking into…" Gatlocke rambled, taking notes on his cuff.

"Not just yet. I've got some unfinished business that needs taking care of," Hunter growled, flicking the scope on his rifle up and drawing a bead on Rex's forehead. He exhaled slowly, letting the tension seep out of his bones. Fully relaxed, he was just preparing to squeeze the trigger when he heard footsteps hurrying towards him, coming closer. Two voices, locked in hurried conversation, ran up the passage behind him.

Without a second thought, Hunter fired off a crack shot at Rex, swiveled and switched to automatic, spraying the area behind him with lead…

* * *

><p><strong>AN**: Is Rex dead? He may be, since he's not a terribly central character in this fic (in case you hadn't noticed that yet). Who's behind the intruders? What happened to _them_? Find out in the next edition! ****Boring Science Bit – skip if not interested**: Well, I needed an explanation for his "magic bullets" other than 'he's-the-villain-so-he-gets-away-with-it'. Obviously I needed a bit more than that, so I decided to do a bit of research. I concluded that microwaves would not need to be as high-powered as pure electricity for one simple reason: microwaves arc off of thin metal. Now (*_activate professor mode_*), if we assume that nanite shells (which are essential spheres) will bounce low-wavelength electromagnetic radiation, then they'll focus all the energy within themselves at the foci, frying the conduit wire completely! This will short out the whole nanite, destroying the EVO eventually. I know, I'm such a total otaku…

**Non-mind-numbingly-boring A/N**: Sorry this update's later than usual, but finding time to research microwave-arc-patterns is rather tough. Just thinking about what his bullets could have been was annoying – I cussed Man of Action out pretty thoroughly some of my sleepless nights. I'm trying to do a slow reveal of Hunter's past, and am currently feeling really sympathetic towards him, which is odd (to say the least).** Interesting statistics**: There are only **3** other stories with Hunter Cain as a main character (the villain of them all), **2** others with NoFace as one (in the role of unknown (that story's unfinished) and amnesiac), and only **1** other story (a one-shot called "For Better – But Mostly Worst" by melodicSiren) with both of them listed. Rather depressing stats. Maybe I just love villains…actually, check out my profile for a slightly more detailed definition of the kind of villains I like.

I admit it, the microwave bullets were partially from _Steins;Gate_, because that showed me precisely how awesome microwaves can be. See if you can catch the other, obvious, reference in the chapter. In cheerier news, Doctor Fell and Diane Farrah (kind of) have been officially included in my collection of characters. Sorry if this chapter was too science-y – I can't help trying to work things out, and I suppose that's carried over to my fanfiction.

**YellowAngela**: Thanks for the encouragement! It's honestly baffling to me how you manage to review absolutely everything I post. I just wanna let you know…I appreciate it! Heaps!

**theWriterunknown**: Thanks, and the same to your story (which I'm finding very interesting, by the way).

**Lily. **: Wow, what a long review…I'm touched! *_brushes tear from eye_* Thanks so much! That's definitely one of the nicest things I've heard about this story, and it's really great to hear that I'm making people smile. Imagine that…li'l ol' me…making people smile…it's like a dream come true! I agree: I can make the character who I want them to be. Of course, whether or not they'll still fit the story is a different matter entirely…Sorry about the name fiasco, but I think that it thinks that your ID is a website, which I can't post in my story.

**FloatingPizza**: I'm afraid I must insist…take a cookie! Take a hug! Take three hugs! Take my watermelon! Because you, my friend…that's right…you complimented my poem! Haha! *_fist pump_* Thanks for that. I agree with your assessment of OC's – it's important not to dump the information on the poor audience. Thanks for the advice, and I've edited up the "monkey" moniker mishaps, so that's all right too. Again, thanks so much for your detailed review.

Review if you liked it! Review if you didn't! Review if you don't care one way or the other - I wanna know!

* * *

><p>And now, the poem. Because Rintarou Okabe was <em>Invictus<em> till the end. Also 'cause Alphonse Elric gets his body back. And…a host of…other reasons…I guess…man, is it that late already?

_I wake, then eat, then jog to school,  
><em>_In class I snooze, just unaware.  
><em>_When woken up, I look a fool,  
><em>_But running home, I do not care._

_-…-_

_For unlike those I call my friends,  
><em>_I have a world beyond their ken.  
><em>_A world where I am lord and king,  
><em>_I'm free to shout and laugh and sing._

_-…-_

_Within this world, I am quite bold,  
><em>_Though all in here is unforeseen.  
><em>_For here are men with arms of gold,  
><em>_And teenagers who're part machine._

xxXxx


	9. The Spark Ignites

xxXxx

_Three days, six hours and fourteen minutes after the New Event,  
><em>_Abysus_

Van Kleiss was running on fumes, and he knew it. Any serious physical activity would totally drain the reserves of energy he'd so carefully conserved for the past few days. Unfortunately, the next phase of the plan made movement necessary, so he was just going to have to bear it.

Recent scans of nanite activity within himself had revealed that a good 80% of his nanites were currently in hibernation, taking only enough energy to maintain structural integrity. The remaining 20% were barely keeping his vital functions running.

He could barely rasp out the commands to Breach, telling her precisely what needed to be done. He could then only sit back and watch as the Pack moved into action. _Must conserve my energy._

"Biowulf…get the device ready."

Biowulf nodded to him before helping Skalamander maneuver the bulky piece of equipment to the center of the world, delicately avoiding the miscellaneous bundles of electronic parts lying around the room. After aligning it neatly in the clearest space that could be found, they set it down slowly.

"The device is in position, master, and the site is secure," the blue wolf reported briskly, rotating his wrists in relief after having put the machine down.

Van Kleiss nodded, only to halt abruptly as the EVO continued speaking.

"There is, however a slight problem. There does not appear to be a viable power source near this area, especially not after that…incident with the generators."

Skalamander shuffled his feet and mumbled awkwardly, knowing full well what was being referred to.

Van Kleiss smirked as he replied, waving one trembling hand deprecatingly, "Never fear, loyal right hand of mine. While it may seem that we have no power source available, I had never intended to use the generators as the primary power source. While they would have been useful in the short-term, eventually they would have given out. No, my friends, what we need is a more…permanent solution."

Groaning like an old man, Van Kleiss slowly levered himself to his feet, gingerly flexing his limbs as he prepared to get to work.

"Breach! I require a sizeable portal to any desert, although one in Africa would be preferable – the security is less stringent there, so we should be able to avoid any unnecessary confrontations."

Breach, confused, made her queries known, asking, "A desert? Why do you want to go there?"

Van Kleiss, though feeling his energy dripping away steadily, managed to muster a smile and say weakly, "It's a simple permanent source of energy. Pretty obvious, too. Of course, it's going to be hard getting it to reach another dimension entirely, but we should manage it. We, the last few EVOs on the planet, are going green."

The maniacal grin that accompanied this cryptic revelation did little to assuage the doubts raging about in Biowulf's mind.

* * *

><p><em>Three days, six hours and seventeen minutes after the New Event<em>,  
><em>The Tadrart Acacus, in the Ghat District of Libya<em>

Van Kleiss staggered across the scorching sand, shielding his eyes from the worst of the sun's glare. The grit beneath his feet was irritating his skin, but he endured the mild discomfort calmly, considering his next move carefully. _Can't run out of energy…_

Before him was a massive array of solar panels, quietly harnessing the sun's energy – a popular initiative ever since any sort of transportation had become a risky enterprise with EVOs prowling major road and train networks. This made conveying large amounts of fossil fuels, like gasoline and oil, extremely risky. The allure of having energy that simply required a cloudless day was enough for most people, and solar energy had become popular quickly.

Advances in technology meant that the new solar panels were capable of sucking energy from even the faintest slivers of light available – a fact that suited Van Kleiss just fine. Besides, the device didn't require too much energy to run if his calculations were all accurate.

Kleiss directed Biowulf to abstract a few dozen solar cells – they would hardly be missed among such large banks as were present here. The EVO nodded, and quickly collected around thirty, picking and choosing randomly.

Examining the small haul for any defects, Van Kleiss thought long and hard about each one. _A single flaw in any one of these could jeopardize the entire scheme_. Finally satisfied with his inspection, he nodded and signaled Breach for another portal.

"That's fine. Breach, a high mountain, if you please…

Tottering around, he stumbled blindly through the new portal the baffled EVO created. He was followed closely by Skalamander and Breach herself.

Biowulf hung back for a second – his sensors had detected something. _Is that…singing?_

He scanned the area carefully for the noise, until he saw a small group of nomads sheltering under a sand dune some distance away. They were a varied group, with children gamboling around a group of camels who were sedately chewing the sparse grass the ground gave up.

The noise that had caught the EVOs attention came from a small portable radio that the adults appeared to be crowded around. There was a festive air to the gathering, and Biowulf could detect scraps of tribal chants and prayers of thanks being offered. _Celebrating the end of the EVOs, no doubt._

Standing on top of the dune, backlit by the burning sun, Biowulf had caught the eye of one of the nomads who was taking a break from the party and gulping some water down quickly. _Is that…a man?_

The young man waved cheerily at the silhouetted figure who was observing the entire vista quietly. His sudden movements caught the attention of the other members of the group, and soon they were all looking at the stranger, gesturing for the mysterious man to come join them in their rejoicing.

Biowulf stayed behind for a second longer, looking at the smiling faces and grinning children. He then walked down the back of the dune and followed his master and comrades through the portal, which winked out after him.

* * *

><p><em>Three days, six hours and nineteen minutes after the New Event,<br>__The Upper Himalayan Mountains_

The biting wind howled lustily as it rushed outside the freezing cave. Snowflakes flipped and danced in the air, and swathes of frozen water lashed anyone unfortunate enough to be caught outside in such ungodly weather. The small group huddled in the lee of the mountain, relatively sheltered from the worst of the elements.

The view was spectacular as they stood on the edge of the sheer cliff, a beautiful panoramic valley just visible through the ever-shifting snow. Biowulf could see the craggy rocks at the distant end of the dip in the earth, and could see the white drifts coating the ground far, far below.

Van Kleiss directed operations as best as he could – this was one of the most important parts of his plan. He could feel his power levels being sucked away by the wind as though through a straw, and knew he had to move fast.

"Biowulf, Skalamander, quickly: set up the cells. Breach, a pane of glass, if you would…"

The solar panels were hurriedly set up in the wind, sheltered under a roof of non-stick glass Breach had pulled from some remote dimension (Actually, it belonged to a tomato farmer in Florida, who was furious to find his crops ruined by rain the next day and baffled by the disappearance of his extremely expensive glass roof).

The super-efficient cells set to work, humming quietly as they collected energy from the weak sunlight filtering diffusely through the heavy cloud layer. The lanthanide doped silicon wafers pumped the energy they gathered into a nifty antenna.

This antenna converted the energy to an alternating electromagnetic field that was keyed specifically to the wavelength of the receiver connected to the device still in Greenville*****. Thus, this power plant would power the machine indefinitely, leaving it independent of local power sources. It was a neat combination of inductive charging and remote control, but Van Kleiss simply didn't have the energy to be proud of himself at the moment.

_Pity about the generator_, the golden-armed man thought hazily to himself. _If it had held up, we could have worried about all this _after_ the device had restored all the nanites and my energy…_

Van Kleiss examined the work. Satisfied that the structure would hold for the next month at the least, he turned his back on the mini-power plant and signaled Breach once more. A portal appeared behind him and swallowed the small group up, leaving some solar cells busily making electricity behind.

Biowulf stayed back for a moment again – his sensors had picked up something moving in the valley way down below. Peering over the edge carefully, he could barely make out hazy shapes morphing through the flurries battering him. His eyes whirred as they sharpened the image, allowing him to view the vista below with complete clarity.

There was a small village nestled by the rock face far below. The buildings had thatched roofs with cows and other livestock littered about, and there was a communal fire in the center of them all. Colorful cloths were fluttering in the wind, draped festively from all the rooftops.

It was a hive of activity, with women twirling wildly in colorful dresses and men singing barely discernible songs in their baritone voices. Children ran about chasing hoops freely about the clearing, as here too the humans celebrated the end of EVOs.

The blue wolf watched the shifting colors below musingly for a moment longer, then turned and followed his compatriots through the portal.

* * *

><p><em>Three days, six hours and twenty-eight minutes after the New Event,<br>__Abysus_

Van Kleiss and the Pack emerged from the portal onto the barren wasteland that was now Abysus. The old place had fallen into complete disrepair: ever since the epic battle against Providence that had ended so catastrophically for the EVOs, nobody had bothered to clean up the hideous wreck that was now the castle. True, it had been a hideous wreck even before the battle: but at least it had been a wreck with dignity. _This…is just pitiful._

The leader stood for a while, gazing out at the ruins of his castle – only the basement remained in place, exposed to the elements since its roof had been torn off. The rest of the infrastructure lay in shattered pieces around the perimeter, a grim reminder of EVO-kind's last noble stand before being ultimately wiped out.

Van Kleiss hadn't been at the scene himself, being preoccupied with acting crazy and fooling the Black Knight. Nonetheless, after the fight he'd secretly watched all the combat records and read all the reports turned in. He was surprised to read that Rex had assisted in the fight back, but noted bitterly that the teenager had been the only EVO to escape un-collared that day. _Running like a rat as usual, Rex? How typical._

Van Kleiss led the loyal force – the last remaining remnant of his once massive army – to the basement of the castle. Once blocked off by a fascinating nanite barrier, the secret laboratory finally had its secrets laid bare – literally, seeing as its roof had been torn off bodily. In normal circumstances, Van Kleiss would have been tripping over his feet to get to the databases – the accumulated work of some of the most brilliant minds humanity had to offer.

However, his brain, while appreciating the content of the room, had no room for anything in his mind other than the overwhelming directive – go to sleep. He jumped the twenty-odd feet to the floor of the basement, stumbling upon his landing and clambering awkwardly back to his feet, fixing his attention on the ground.

The surface of the floor was jagged and uneven, with stray rocks bursting through the concrete slab that had formed the building's foundation at random intervals. But that wasn't what grabbed the exhausted scientist's wavering focus.

He could feel them. He could feel the dead nanite carcasses littering the soil, devoid of any activity. He briefly wished they were active so he could replenish his depleted power reserves.

Van Kleiss sighed heavily and lurched forward, moving almost drunkenly as his brain tried to convince him that his body should be asleep._ I can't keep this up for much longer_. He waved a hand in Breach's direction, prompting her into action.

A glowing portal opened in the floor in the center of the basement, bearing a large mass through it. As the Pack watched, Breach pulled Van Kleiss' _opus magnum_ from her private dimension, tossing it onto the ground in the middle of the ruined room.

The "Spark", he'd decided to call it: the tiny flame that would start Operation WildFire, the codename Kleiss had decided to give the entire operation. The scientist mused as his consciousness flickered, _How ironic. The Spark that lights the Wildfire that will consume the world in flames. Some poetic justice there, neh?_

Some of the other occupants in the room were feeling slightly more pragmatic at the moment. _It sure is heavy, name or no_, Biowulf thought sardonically. _And I sure hope it works, after all this hype._

Suddenly, Van Kleiss quavered like an aspen where he stood, body shaking from the lack of energy. _Is it too late? _He attempted to lift his gauntlet to check on it quickly, but found that it was dead at his side – he couldn't get it to raise itself. Eventually, feebly using his other arm as leverage, he managed to confirm what he'd known for a while: the ambient light had gone out entirely. _Oh, great._

He knew what that meant. _The nanites that my body need to consume have finally been depleted after all this time. My own body, weak as it is, will soon run out of energy, and I will enter a coma shortly; following which, if no nanites are absorbed by my body, my heart will simply stop pumping and I shall die._

Some small part of him that was slacking off from the task at hand knew that he should be terrified, but he simply couldn't muster the energy to feel such a strong emotion.

Knowing full well the urgency of the operation, Biowulf, Breach and Skalamander were all standing by, watching him carefully as he swayed on his feet. _Is this the end? After coming so close?_

"Satellite", the dark-haired scientist slurred. "Biowulf!"

The lieutenant stepped forward, masking his private unease under a covering of faithful subservience. Nonetheless, his inner mind was seething and roiling, as he conflicted with himself. On the one hand was his loyalty to Van Kleiss – and loyalty was the first item on his personal creed. However, his subconscious kept playing games with his rational intellect.

In vain he focused on his memories of being a young mutant, feared and hated by the human world. In vain he did he recall finally finding acceptance with the man standing before him and the EVOs alongside him. Rather, his traitorous mind kept flashing his psyche images of the disparate glances he had managed to catch of the rejoicing throng of humanity all over the planet. Rejoicing as they were freed at last from what they viewed as a malicious curse upon their land.

His sense of duty warred with this bizarre new feeling that stirred within him, causing him a raging headache. And all the while, singing nomads sat in the shade of his skull while women swirling in colored dresses danced behind his eyes, spinning madly and dazzling him with their brilliance.

"Biowulf," Van Kleiss rasped, closing his eyes to stave off the impending unconsciousness for a few more crucial seconds. "You must charge the device for –", he broke off here and emitted a bout of hacked coughs. The Pack looked on uneasily as their master gripped his haunches, striving valiantly to remain upright.

Kleiss slouched forward further, hunching on his knees, and continued: "For six minutes. Activate the reprogramming transmitter immediately after. Results should be immediate, but," Van Kleiss took a deep breath, "…I have eight, maybe nine minutes before oxygen supply to my brain fails and my neurons asphyxiate."

Biowulf nodded, acknowledging the unspoken plea to hurry, and erected the charging antenna in a few seconds, receiving a strong signal from the solar station posted in the Himalayas. The screen flickered as data flew across it, before a warning prompt appeared: _Connection established. Program mainframe has been entered. Nanite control: 100%. Prerequisites for reprogramming are now installing._

Across the globe, former EVOs felt twinges in odd places and, in some extreme cases, began hearing voices. Streams of code flew through processing units all over as a secondary program was installed upon every normal nanite in existence. Ready to re-ignite the flames of EVO-kinds dying embers.

A rare few of cured EVOs recognized the oncoming symptoms, but the vast majority were completely unprepared for what was coming and were hence blindsided. Those few who realized that they were turning back into EVOs once again reacted in various ways, one of which was rolling on the ground while screaming.

Once he finished speaking, Van Kleiss slowly fell backwards, finishing prone on the floor. Breach, being her usual taciturn self, fetched a lounge chair from some alternate dimension (or possibly Hawaii, where a sunbathing celebrator found her rump unpleasantly bruised moments later) and propped up their master on it. Skalamander, seeing that there was nothing he could do, began moving rubble off of the floor and tried to create a free space for councils and the like.

Biowulf stood by the Spark, staring unblinkingly at the charge monitor for the next five-and-a-half minutes, wrestling with himself all the while. _Charge levels 80%…85%…90%…_

When the Spark had charged itself completely, Biowulf reached over with no visible hesitation and pressed the 'activate' button, triggering Operation WildFire and unleashing the flames of chaos on the world once more.

xxXxx

* * *

><p><strong>Note:<strong> Sorry about the short chapter, but nothing else really needed to be said. However, (_*evil smirk*_) things are finally moving! Action at last! Ha ha! If anyone's interested, I have written a new Code Geass fanfiction for all you Code Geass fans out there who actually read Generator Rex stories (I can't be the only one, right?) – check it out if you've got time on your hands.

***Boring science note: **Inductive charging is essentially 'remote charging', and it's the next big thing (apparently). While we know absolutely nothing of Breach's alternate dimensions, we _do_ know that radio communication is possible when you're inside them, so energy waves can travel to them. We found out that radio waves can reach her dimension in Episode 8 "Breach" – Holiday and Rex were able to talk to each other even when Rex was in Breach's dollhouse. Now, inductive charging basically works by emitting a field of 'energy' (involving resonant inductive coils…which I'm not going into) that are picked by any device in range with a 'transmission coil', which lets them convert the energy back into useable form. Basically, Van Kleiss mashed this concept together with exclusive radio waves, so only _his_ device gets free energy from the solar plant in the Himalayas. That's VK for you…stingy as ever…

**YellowAngela**: Wow, you give me too much credit…but thanks anyway! Yes, Cain is a total psycho, but he _might_ have reasons. I'm going to look at the redemptive angle of the man for this fanfic – I _love_ redeemed villains! I can't do it for Van Kleiss, unfortunately, but he's _definitely_ not going to die. And don't worry, if 3 seasons couldn't kill off Rex there's no earthly way that I could.

**LilySRichards (excluding the periods in your name)**: Wow, there seems to be a veritable deluge of people liking my poems all of a sudden…thanks! I hope this update was worth the wait, and thanks for your continuous reviews! It's nice to know that I'm doing some things right, at least.

**theWriterunknown**: I feel for you, but unfortunately the fact that you are experiencing mixed feelings…simply means that I am doing my job. Thanks for reviewing, and I appreciate that you like Hunter (it's _so_ difficult to change the perception of a character – especially an established one like Hunter…).

And now…NOT a poem! Unless you count 'Invictus'…This is an omake that hit me in the face one night and wouldn't stop biting me. It was formerly going to involve Skuld the angel (from AMG) for the upgrades, but using Man of Action's own universe seemed so much better…

* * *

><p><strong>OMAKE: The Wolf, the Crash, and the Galvanic Mechamorph (do NOT take this seriously) <strong>

* * *

><p><em>Biowulf reached over and pressed the 'activate' button<em>…

The lone figure sat before the grave, clothes fluttering forlornly in the wind that swept over the barren wasteland that had once been Abysus.

The headstone was simple and crude, reading simply, "Van Kleiss, A Seeker of the Truth." And below that:

_In the fell clutch of circumstance,  
>I have not winced nor cried aloud;<br>__Under the bludgeonings of chance,  
>my head is bloody but unbowed<em>."

It had been three months since the machine's failure, and all had left. Breach was leading a very successful career as an international criminal. Skalamander was much sought after as a prime producer of rare emeralds, and indeed was already starting his own jewelling empire. And Biowulf?

Biowulf was left before his master's tomb, alone with the ghosts of past memories. Alone to reminisce, and pay his respects to the man who had given him all and then fallen from on high.

_So many promises…_Biowulf silently waited before the epitaph, he knew not what for.

_What do I do now? What _can_ I do now? I'm just a freak in this world, with no option but to perish away. There's nothing left for me here._

_I'd just like to find an island in the middle of nowhere to stay on forever…_

Biowulf was roused from his introspective thoughts by a bright flash of light, followed by an incredible _*__**whump**__*_ noise from behind him. Turning rapidly, he saw what was easily the most interesting thing that had appeared in the last three months.

A vessel of some sort appeared to have come from nowhere and crashed into the broken ground, smoking as it lay in the crater it had blasted out. As Biowulf watched, the ship-thing opened a hole in its side, out of which poured billowing clouds of smoke.

Nothing came out, and Biowulf eventually began to wonder exactly what was happening inside the mysterious projectile. His super-sensitive ears, though, caught the sounds of irregular movement from within, as well as wheezing noises.

_Irregular movement…something's alive in there! But for how long? _Biowulf asked himself, passively watching the ship burn itself up. Eventually, his curiosity got the better of himself, and he went to go investigate.

"Umm…hello?" That was as far as the EVO got before a hand that seemed kind of clammy latched onto his wrists for dear life, hanging on with a vice-like grip.

Trying vainly to dislodge his unwanted freeloader, he fell backwards, dragging the leech attached to his wrist with him. The figure tumbled onto the rocky ground, lay still for a moment, then straightened and dusted itself off, mumbling to itself.

"Oh, that's just great…only halfway to the Theta Quadrant and the accursed thing's already broken. May the Fires of Orzoth consume that shady dealer I bought it from…"

Biowulf was lost. The…creature… looked like a cross between the Slenderman and a frog, with veins that looked suspiciously like Rex's work running along his body.

"Well, time to see what kind of wretched backwater I've landed myself on this time…Oh, hello! I didn't see you there. Were you the helpful life-form that helped me escape from the fire?"

Biowulf thought a bit, then nodded. "Uhh…that was me…I guess…"

He found his arm being pumped up and down by the garrulous creature as he chattered, "Much obliged, you know. Smoke plays havoc with my silicon interface circuits, and I fear that I was almost at the point of complete system failure when you considerately gave me some aid."

Biowulf, after a bit of struggle, managed to pry his arm back. He automatically said, "No problem. Umm…what are you?"

The creature was fixing his ship, _merging_ with the metal itself to put it back together as it kept talking good-naturedly, "I'm Baz-el: treasure hunter, black marketer and general scoundrel. I'm a Galvanic Mechamorph, from the moon of Galvan Prime, Galvan B. I'm incredibly grateful, you know. If only there was some way to repay you…"

The being ceased its insanely rapid repairs before snapping its fingers. "I know! My son needs to see the world, so I'll leave him here for some experience."

As Biowulf watched, the alien pulled a smaller version of itself from somewhere, talking non-stop all the while, "He'll be no trouble at all, and I'll be along to pick him up in a few millennia or so, so you don't need to worry about that…"

_No problems there_, thought Biowulf wryly, still not entirely sure what was happening. "Errm, who did you say you were, again?"

The being (Baz-el?) clambered into the cockpit, calling over its shoulder, "Sorry, old man, but I simply have to run. There's an auction on Mor' Otesi that I simply _must_ attend, so – ciao!"

And with that, the cockpit door slammed shut. A moment later, the ship's engines flared to life as the mysterious alien took off into the sky, vanishing as suddenly as he'd appeared.

And with that, the visitor from another realm was gone. Biowulf spent a whole minute looking up at the sky.

_What just happened?_

He snapped out of it when he felt something nuzzling his leg. He looked down sharply, only to find something wrapped around his foot making mewling noises.

_His son, eh? Looks more like a dog_. "So…can you do any tricks?"

The son didn't respond, merely looking back up at Biowulf with that cyclopean face of his.

"I guess not," Biowulf sighed. _Still, he's kind of cute…I guess…_

He reached one claw hand down to touch his new companion, who was purring contentedly. Suddenly, as soon as Biowulf made contact with his pet, the things _morphed_ onto his arm, completely coating the limb in an instant. A few seconds later, Biowulf's entire upper body was coated.

At first he panicked slightly. _Ohmigosh, ohmigosh, omigosh, I'm being eaten by a _dog_!_

Unable to stop it, he could only watch in horror as the wave of black slowly engulfed his head, covering his eyes with darkness for a moment. When he opened his eyes again, though, he found that he could see the outside world with far greater clarity than he'd ever been able to before.

He looked at his suddenly heavily built arms and flexed one experimentally. _Wow. What's going on?_ He then noticed something strapped to his back.

_Are these…wings?_

* * *

><p>Several small countries of Europe were surprised early in the morning by a loud booming noise sounding through the atmosphere.<p>

The few eyewitnesses who managed to catch a glimpse of the Unidentified Flying Object described it as "black and green", with one young child spreading her arms and describing it as a "flying wolf".

All military intervention by various organizations was met by highly advanced pulsar retaliation that completely immobilized all weaponry fired at it. The target's retaliation consisted of several extremely powerful laser beams that absolutely wrecked all who dared to stand in its path.

As far as the origin of the vessel itself was concerned, opinions were divided: some claimed that the green color was distinctly alien, and that the earth was being invaded by extraterrestrials at last. Others claimed that the Norse gods had awoken once more, and that Mjolnir had struck down Fenrir the Great Wolf from the sky. Whatever the case, all observers were agreed on one thing: it had been heading in the direction of the West Indies.

Several hours later, the Crump Island's only inhabitants, a rich family whose identity remains unknown to this day, found themselves summarily being kicked off of their own island. The intruder was fearsome, and summarily dispatched all the safety measures in place before emptying the villa and claiming it as his own.

* * *

><p>Biowulf lay on his hammock in the shade, lazily scratching his friend between the ears while casually sipping a <em>pina colada<em>. The family that had lived here before had had a ludicrous amount of supplies: easily enough to last a single wolf several lifetimes of luxury and indolence.

_This is the life…_

His peaceful thoughts were cut short by a sound in the distance that became louder with each passing second.

_Helicopter blades…maybe it's the US Marines this time. Or could it be the coast guard? Anyway, it doesn't matter._

Slowly untangling himself from the hammock, Biowulf sighed, before whistling to his pet in an all-too-familiar gesture. "Come on, Ship. You know what time it is."

Nodding eagerly and chasing his tail, the creature jumped onto Biowulf and merged with him almost instantaneously.

Sighting through his enhanced vision and firing off a few warning missiles to keep the enemy off, Biowulf smiled.

"That's right, boy. It's Hybrid Time!"

xxXxx

* * *

><p><strong>End Omake<strong>


	10. The Tipping Point

**A/N**: Wow! I've finally broken the 1000 views barrier! Ironically, my Code Geass fanfiction did the same thing this week, but – whatever! Thanks to all the readers out there, and I hope I've made you smile!

**Important Note about omakes**: In the last chapter, I included an omake that seems to have thrown several people for a loop. Just to be clear – **Biowulf is not allied with Ship, Van Kleiss is alive, and Breach…well, she's probably an international criminal.** A short definition: Omakes are irrelevant (and irreverent) tangents included by the author for the purpose of humor. They are not to be taken seriously, and yes, you'll probably see some more later.

Sorry if this bored you, but there were some people who got a bit mixed up. My fault, really. Anyway, on to the story!

xxXxx

* * *

><p><em>A few minutes earlier,<br>__Providence Headquarters_

Six was left staring at his phone in confusion. The call to White hadn't gone through for some reason. All he'd managed to get was an airheaded woman looping the same phrase: _We're sorry, but the number you have dialed is currently unavailable. We're sorry, but the number you have dialed…_

The ninja simply couldn't understand what was the matter with his connection. Even if one of the hubs was down, the Providence network had several independent towers to prevent exactly this type of communication breakdown. The only person capable of such an impressively coordinated failure was_…oh. _Well, if the kid was involved, it was no wonder everything was shot up so efficiently. _But why would he do something that ridiculous?_

After some quick thinking, Six came to the conclusion that BoBo must have cannibalized the communication systems for the party. _That would certainly explain where the disco ball and laser show had come from_. Rex seemed to have disabled the intercom screens as well – no doubt to keep Six away from the chimp's Grand Finale. Contacting White through them wasn't an option.

Rex must have disabled the communications himself – with his nanites, it'd be a piece of cake. Besides, it wouldn't have been the first time…_The young fool. Doesn't he know how risky shutting down all the comm systems is? Case in point: my current predicament._

When Six, scraping the bottom of the barrel for ways to alert White, punched the fire alarm, he wasn't really hoping for much. True to how the rest of his day had been going, a few red lights flashed pitifully, whirling weakly on the ceiling. However, the keening wail that was supposed to accompany the lights was conspicuously absent. The sprinklers in that section went on, but Six knew that the sprinkler systems were separate for each region – fires were fairly common, and when an experiment went wrong the whole building didn't want to get soaked.

Six cursed his luck silently. _The dratted chimp must have re-wired the whole sound system for his blasted music _– _the primate had even cut the alarm system for his blasted _tunes_. I need a remote communication panel – now, where to find one…_

The nearest fixed wireless com-link with White's office was on the other side of the building, and Hunter and Gatlocke were in the middle somewhere. Six didn't have many other options to call for reinforcements, and he knew it perfectly well. _Guess that means it's up to me again..._

He started running down the hall, followed closely by Evan. Having shared a cell block with the two escapees for quite a while, Evan had no illusions regarding the strength and intensity possessed by Hunter Cain. _If those psychos are on the roam, people could get hurt._

The duo ran silently down the twisted paths, working their way steadily towards Rex. Six was painfully aware that Hunter's main target at the moment was Rex, and the ninja's main priority right now was ensuring that the teen was safe from the convict.

Evan followed in Six's footsteps closely for a while, mirroring the ninja's every step. About halfway through the halls, however, he could feel _something _happening to him. He couldn't explain it exactly, it just seemed like there was some sort of code messing with his body. He didn't understand it himself – the sensation felt both foreign and native to his body at the same time, as though his very body were fighting with itself.

His head started pounding, and the blood rushing past his ears made him giddy. Everything he looked at seemed to be taking on a blush of crimson, and (although he couldn't see it), his retina was turning red as it was flooded by blood. His tendons corded on his arms as his muscles tensed involuntarily, spasming as the programming of his nanites was accessed.

_What's…going…on…?_

His thinking abilities were being stifled, and the thrill of the hunt was overtaking him. From a distance, as though through a dark red curtain, he could see his body and, to a certain extent, influence it, but he felt as though someone – or some_thing_ – else were in the driving seat. _I've felt this before…but when was that? What's happening?_

_And what are these infernal voices saying?_

* * *

><p>Six continued running, unaware of the struggle taking place in the man running behind him. He noticed, however, when Evan slowed down and fell back several paces. He definitely noticed, moreover, when Evan stopped completely and bent over in half, breathing heavily.<p>

_Oh, what perfect timing_. This was just fantastic. When he doesn't need to hustle, the man moves like lightning; but now that there's an actual emergency, he keels over and starts flopping like a landed fish. _I suppose I'd better give him a hand._

Six stopped and approached the trembling man carefully – experience had taught him to approach Evan with caution when the amnesiac was stressed – or, worse, angry. Unsure of what to do, Six looked around haphazardly for anything that could help him handle the trembling and potentially homicidal man currently squeezing his eyes shut and massaging his temples.

Six's spinning eyeballs locked onto a familiar looking stain on a wall a bit farther down the hall, and identified it – they were outside César's lab. Without a second thought, Six hauled Evan through the door.

It was a pretty average sight that greeted his eyes – Meechum was sweeping up some broken glass and mopping up a spill, while at the back Rhodes and César were hollering at the top of their lungs about some reaction or the other.

Rhodes snapped, "And I'm telling you for the last time, the molecules were homochiral before, and now they're all right-handed!" She said this as she waved some passports about wildly, belaboring the hapless César with them.

He weakly blustered in retaliation, saying, "But _I'm_ telling _you_, they were achiral before! Where did the homochirality come from? These aren't even organic compounds!"

Rhodes opened her mouth for another scathing remark, then caught sight of Six supporting Evan in the doorway. "Oh, hello, Agent Six. Is something the matter with Evan?"

"He's having another episode. I though perhaps one of you could look at him," Six answered, already fully aware of what the answer would be. After all, Evan's fits were common knowledge through Providence, but they were almost impossible to study because of their sheer unpredictability. This, naturally, meant that the geeks in the science department hadn't been able to actually analyze him during one of his episodes, despite their constant attempts to do so.

As expected, César leapt at the opportunity to observe Evan's "reversive state", as the brainiacs had termed his fits. Meechum and Rhodes, however, seemed to disagree with him on the advisability of harboring a super-strong out-of-control man in their lab, and their squabbling soon escalated into a full-on fight.

While the three "experts" argued away, Six scanned the lab for any sort of communication device. _Mango smoothie, hyper-electro magnet that could disassemble a tank from a kilometer away, holographic projector, neodymium alloy mini-chiller…_there! A radio uplink directly to White's office!

Six snatched the hand-held device and activated it. An image of White sitting at his desk drinking some milk flickered onto the small screen. The festive mood appeared to have affected him as well, as the man was wearing a red tie – quite a departure from his usual monochromatic mode of attire.

"Ah, César–" White began, stopping when he saw Six's serious face on the screen. His forehead wrinkled in confusion momentarily. "Six? What are you doing in César's lab?" White turned serious, setting the cup down abruptly. "Is there a problem?"

_I'll say there's a problem_, the cynical ninja thought to himself. Out loud, of course, his demeanor was much more professional.

"There's been a prison break." In brief, Six outlined the situation – Hunter had escaped, Evan was having a serious fit, and the alarm systems had been disabled by the wretched chimp. White cursed furiously and pounded his fist on his desk.

"We should have taken care of Hunter a long time ago. Now he's loose and bent on killing Rex, the most important person on the planet at this moment. This is completely unacceptable!" White ranted, repeatedly pounding his table with a clenched fist. He called down a bit as he considered their best plan of action.

"Let's see...Hunter needs to be taken out as quickly as possible. Six!" he barked, making up his mind. "I want you to take Hunter out permanently. I'm authorising you to commander any available operatives and eliminate him immediately," White declared, deciding that neutralization was really the best course of action in the current situation.

While Six agreed with Knight on the urgency of their mission, he couldn't help but be slightly amused upon the fact that White had finally begun seeing Rex as more of a personality than a tool. Considering White's deep-rooted hatred of all things ECO, such a radical shift was especially surprising. _The kid gets to all of us, I guess_.

Safe in his nanite-free fortress, The White Knight rubbed his forehead, wrinkling the bleached skin momentarily. Why was there always a catastrophe to be averted? Was it really too much to ask the monsters, terrorists and insane biker gangs to just leave him alone for a day? Why couldn't he just have a normal day?

White could barely remember normal: for the last four years, his life had been nothing but Providence – fighting maniacal villains for the fate of the world one minute, and trying to soothe a teenaged boy's injured feelings the next.

And you thought your job was tough.

Now White was in his most aggravating situation yet – Rex had shut off the cameras to the room, blocking him from seeing Bobo's "Grand Finale". His extensive network of Providence-wide communications had also been butchered for the party: that was still raving on heedlessly, just for the record. And while this bureaucratic nightmare was taking place, a homicidal maniac with little-to-no concern for his own personal safety was stalking through the building under everyone's noses! White sighed. _Just another day at the office_, he thought to himself as he stood up and walked to his suit.

* * *

><p>Back at César's lab, Six dropped the phone and planned out his next move. <em>If communications are out for White, that probably means that they're out through the entire building…meaning I've got to take out Hunter by myself.<em>

And Evan, he reminded himself. The man was lying flat on a medical exam table while César and Rhodes took samples from him while monitoring his vitals (Meechum, of course, was maintaining a safe distance).

"Fascinating..." César hummed, checking the readouts from one of his devices. "There appears to be a massive spike in nanite activity at the moment: possibly instigated by his fits. This is the first time I've seen evidence connecting emotions and nanite activation..."

Rhodes cut in here, querying, "Don't you feel that it's possible we've got it backwards?"

"How so?"

She carried on with her theory, postulating, "Maybe his nanites are what's being affected, and that's what's causing his mood swings!"

César considered her idea. "So, you think that there's an outside force that's messing with his nanites?" He considered the idea for a moment before shaking his head. "Now that's just a bit _too_ far-fetched, even for me."

Rhodes agreed. "Yeah, you're right. It was just a crazy thought I had. Forget I said anything."

Rex's brother turned back to his work contentedly, glad to have gotten that out of the way. "In that case, let's give the subject a shot of Nanite-Deactivation Serum version 4.73c, and send him off."

Meechum nodded and typed a command into the (repaired) Sample Collector, beaming with satisfaction when a large syringe was deposited in his hands. "Prepping for shot," he sang out, prepared to inject Evan with the clear fluid inside the vial.

Six, who was growing impatient, cut in here. "How long is this going to take?" he asked, masking the undercurrent of urgency in his voice. _Every second wasted here is a second that lets Hunter gets closer to killing Rex..._

César, as usual, was completely unperturbed by his surroundings. "We are about to lower his nanite activity significantly for around five minutes, after which he should have mastered his emotions. Of course, this theory assumes that his emotions are what's currently agitating his nanites so much, and that it's not some outside influence causing all this..."

Six had tuned out most of the speech, concluding that anything that didn't help him with Rex was basically useless information at the moment. "Just give him the shot already!"

César nodded to Meechum, who immediately plunged the needle into Evan's bloodstream.

* * *

><p>Six watched uneasily as Evan's thrashings slowly died down. He slowly went closer to the former EVO, who appeared to be at least semi-aware at the moment.<p>

'_Take any available operatives', he says_, Six thought to himself privately. _How generous of White_. Still, the're was no denying it: Evan was an interesting mystery, and there was no doubt that he had a knack for escaping life-and-death situations with nary a scratch.

"Evan," the ninja called, causing the blond man to start slightly before looking up.

"Yeah, Six?" he answered in a voice that seemed somehow…dead. Six quelled adding unease at the sound mercilessly.

_We can worry about his attitude later._ "Can you help me catch Hunter and Gatlocke? I need all the help I can get, and I can't contact reinforcements, so you're all I've got."

There was a moment of silence as the European considered his options. "Help stop Hunter, yes? Someone needs to halt him…and he _is _gunning for Rex…" the man muttered, doing some quick numbers in his head.

_Current situational handicap being calculated…finished. Odds of survival under normal circumstances: 98.7%._

_Download: 73.81% complete. Chances of loss of conscious bodily control upon download completion: 100.0%. Probability of survival in such an eventuality: Unknown._

_Final conclusion: Negative. Remain under medical supervision to prevent another potential episode._

"Sorry, Six. My gut tells me that I will not do well in combat for some reason, so I think it is best if I stand down for now," he said, perfectly blasé. Inside, however, he was a squirming mish-mash of emotions. _Download? What is downloading inside of me? And _loss of conscious bodily control_? What is the meaning of that?_

Six, as usual, was unsure of exactly what was happening behind the man's eyes. "So…you're not coming, then?"

Ignoring Six's voice, Evan continued thinking. _Could it be…I'm reverting? _

Watching Evan wrestle with himself, Six shrugged and turned to leave. He'd thought that this Evan person had been made of sterner stuff than this, but it seemed that he'd been wrong after all. Ah well, couldn't exactly blame the guy for freaking out: from what Six'd seen of the guy, he was a real pacifist who'd never asked for any of this.

"In that case, don't leave this room. It's going to get messy, and odds are that people are going to get killed. Better for you if you stay in a safe place," Six said as he turned to go.

As he was just opening the door, though, he heard a faint cry from behind him, weakly calling, "Wait!"

Bemused, the ninja half-turned to see a torn man sitting before him. Evan clutched his head furiously as he thought, arguing within his own head.

He ran the stats by himself one more time. Chances of survival if the mysterious download were unknown, so that was as good as useless. The odds of losing "conscious bodily control" upon the completion of the download had been 100.0%, and Evan knew that whatever a loss of bodily control meant, it was going to happen to him.

And that terrified him.

Unbidden, voices began to surface in his mind – not the mysterious voices streaming out code, but echoes of his friends...

_Who'd want to go to a college named _Tractor_?_

_I'm Rex Salazar. Rex to my friends._

_He's just some guy we bumped into, you know, walking around..._

_Have you met our newest member, Evan?_

_He's not _just some guy...

_You can call me Rex._

Evan's head snapped up. In the end, it turned out that he didn't need to use his special analytic skills to determine what to do, as it was all very simple and boiled down to a few sentences.

_Rex is my friend. I am Rex's friend. Rex is in danger. Why am I still standing still?_

Six was still standing in the doorway looking at him expectantly. Standing up slowly, Evan turned to face Rex's protector. "I'm coming with you," he declared, walking. For some reason, that simple statement drew a small smile from the normally stoic ninja.

Patting the European on the shoulder, Six turned and led the two of them hurriedly out of the room, leaving the scientists to continue working on unlocking the secrets of the Universe (while conveniently forgetting the necessities of the world around them).

As they sprinted towards the party, Six briefed Evan on their mission. It was fairly simple – they just had to locate Rex and keep him safe. After that, they could worry about raising the alarm and flushing out Hunter Cain. As they approached the party room, the two had to raise their voices to be heard over the ongoing hubbub, discussing plans and strategies to clear the entire building rapidly. Microseconds before they turned the final corner to the main room, Six heard a soft pop, rather like a cork being pulled from a champagne bottle as a tiny packet of lead was sent hurtling at a teenage boy's head.

The green-suited man's well-trained body realized what was happening before his mind could process it, and the agent pulled his blades out and stopped short, halting Evan with a sharply raised elbow.

The pair skidded to a stop milliseconds before a hail of death flattened itself against the wall in front of them.

As Six and Evan narrowly escaped several dozen bullets, their companion projectile was still headed another way – straight towards the Savior of the World.

The bullet that Hunter had fired at Rex floated almost lazily through the air, trailing a thin line of smoke. The bullet made no noise except for a quiet, high-pitched whistle as it sliced through the air. Nothing moved as the hollow point bullet looped down, arrowing towards Rex's forehead.

* * *

><p>At that exact moment, on a different continent entirely, a blue wolf was agonizing with himself over a world-altering decision as his eyes danced and clapped before his skull.<p>

* * *

><p>Fortunately for our hero, Hunter had dropped his aim approximately half a degree when he'd been disturbed by Six, and the bullet lodged itself neatly in the wall behind Rex (who didn't even notice his narrow brush with death).<p>

The bullet itself, of course, caused a fair amount of ruckus when it landed: shattering a punch bowl on the refreshment table and scaring Dr. Holiday (who had been serving herself a consolation glass when she couldn't find Six) several feet into the air and fairly out of her skin. It also stained her best lab coat. Permanently.

The effects of this were myriad. As wasted as they were (the fez-wearing primate had managed to smuggle a crate of champagne in, for Pete's sake!), everyone in the room knew the sound of a bullet crashing into a wall. Couple that sound with random items breaking around the room, and everybody subconsciously began searching for the threat while groping for cover.

Four years of constant warfare can do strange things to your head, but there's no doubt it comes in handy when you're under enemy fire with no warning whatsoever.

Captain Calan, the first to recover fully from the surprise, rapidly found the corridor that the shot had come from by working out the rough trajectory of the bullet from the point of impact. He correctly concluded that there were hostiles in Providence and ran up the stairs, followed by a squad of soldiers who'd volunteered to take the few rifles in the near vicinity to help him.

Dr. Holiday looked down at her ruined dress in shock for a few moments, before finding her sister and hiding her under a convenient nearby table. Before she could do so, however, matters quickly became a good deal more complicated.

When Rex saw the squad charging up the stairs, he hesitated for a few moments, then followed them, Punk Busters at the ready. He didn't know what was going on, but he suspected that that punch bowl shattering had been only the beginning of his problems. He sighed. _And it was going so well, too…_

BoBo, Kenwyn and Noah were similarly affected by the bullet, remaining in stasis for a few more seconds before galvanizing themselves into motion. BoBo slung his perpetually-present blasters off of his shoulders and looked across at Kenwyn, who was struggling to pull a Beretta Nano from her boots, cursing and mumbling as she stumbled about.

When she finally managed to finagle her weapon from her footwear, she straightened herself out. She looked up at BoBo and nodded. Together, they followed after the troops on point, leaving Noah behind to agonize over what to do, torn between discretion and, as it were, valor.

* * *

><p>While all this was going on below, Six was dealing with his own problems in the hallway. Hunter Cain was desperate, heavily armed, and fiendishly intelligent. Gatlocke was the same, although he barely counted due to the obvious "insanity factor".<p>

Meanwhile, Six soon found that he had to protect Evan as well, who had collapsed a few seconds earlier and was curled on the floor, mumbling disjointed phrases like "powering up" and "nanites…voices". As far as Six could tell, he was mostly unconscious, but that didn't stop him from being a liability.

Nonetheless, Six was not called "Six" for nothing. It would take a good many more handicaps to seriously worry the sixth most dangerous man on the planet. After a quick series of ripostes and parries, he managed to pin Gatlocke's cape to the wall with one of his blades, effectively disabling for the moment. The henchman lay there prone, cursing sporadically while trying to wrench himself loose.

Hunter Cain, though, was proving to be a more difficult proposition. The man seemed to have an unlimited supply of ammunition, and was preventing Six from getting to close quarters by warding the agent off with the gun barrel itself, which was built like a lead pipe. Six was kept at bay for some time, until Captain Calan's group of hastily armed soldiers came thundering up the passageway behind him.

"Prison break! Men, secure the area. I don' want to see the perps leave this area conscious! Take 'em down!"

Hunter was distracted for a crucial second, and Six decided to take a gamble. Weighing the distance between them, he switched his grip on the pommel and threw his katana like a javelin for the second time that day. The blade spun through the air for a few seconds, before spearing the gun barrel vertically and blocking the bullets' path. Six smirked to himself and moved in, prepared to take the Hunter down by old-fashion force.

_There's no way he can take me in hand-to-hand. I have him._

Unfortunately, that's when Evan collapsed and started screaming…

xxXxx

* * *

><p><strong>AN**: There really is no suspense here; we all know what's happening to Evan. Anyway, time to answer some reviews:

**YellowAngela**: Glad you liked the omake! And the mystery of what happened to Rex is solved here, I hope.

**FloatingPizza**: Thanks! As odd as it may sound, that line played through my own head for quite a while before I got it right. Nice to know it was appreciated!

**theWriterunknown**: Reference my earlier PM to you. Thanks for the review, and I hope any lingering problems regarding omakes were cleared up!

**LilySRichards** (yeah, I'm just going to call you that, if that's OK. Sorry…): Wow, people really care about Rex! Don't worry, like I said earlier: I can't kill him, I've actually named my story after him!

And now, a poem in honor of Christmas. It's fairly lengthy, but I liked it: it _is_ modeled on my favorite Christmas song, after all. Have a nice day!

* * *

><p><strong>(sing to the tune of "We Three Kings")<strong>

* * *

><p><em>(first verse)<br>_We four troops who rule Providence,  
>Do assert our full dominance.<br>Primate, soldier, hothead, doctor,  
>Defend the populace.<p>

_(chorus)  
><em>Ohh-Ohh, slice them EVOs, dice them fine,  
>Mince them into dust sublime,<br>Chain them, free them, kill them, cure them,  
>Just keep them all supine.<p>

_(first verse)  
><em>Twin katanas of spinning death,  
>Green-suit ninja's not out of breath.<br>Dodging, lunging, leaping, plunging,  
>Bringing his enemies death.<p>

_(chorus)_

_(second verse)  
><em>Chimpanzee who calls the kid "chief",  
>Mainly there for comic relief.<br>Primate in action with no sanction,  
>Hairy yet lovable thief.<p>

_(chorus)_

_(third verse)  
><em>She's a doctor with a white vest,  
>Left at base to keep up the nest.<br>Trained in science; self-reliant,  
>Easily one of the best.<p>

_(chorus)_

_(fourth and final verse)  
><em>Teenaged drama in human form,  
>Using fists like a whirling storm.<br>Punching 'em down while acting the clown,  
>Refuses to conform.<p>

xxXxx


End file.
